I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



, H7 I 

# 

UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, f 



/ 

THE 

IDEAL 

OF 

THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 
A SKETCH. 

BY THE 

REV. R MONTGOMERY, M.A. 

AUTHOR OF "LTJTHEK," "THE G03PEI, BEFORE THE AGE," ETC. ETC, 

" There is one body and one Spirit." — EpL ir. 

LOISTDOIN^- 
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 6.5, CORNHILL. 

1845. 



London : 

Printed by Stewart and Mtrrat, 
Old Bailey. 



LC Control Nxomber 




tmp96 031476 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



The following pages are, in part, derived from two of the 
Author's Theological Works, which are nearly out of 
print. The particular reasons for their publication need 
not be intruded on the reader. Let it suffice to say that, 
in the opinion of some competent judges, they contain the 
germs of those distinctive Principles, and the seeds of 
those glorious Doctrines, which the Reformed Church of 
England in the ideal of her own Constitution professes 
to maintain, and by the due ascendency of which over 
the minds and morals of her children, her loyal adherence 
unto Christ will be best understood. 



CONTENTS. 



I. A Distinction to be duly Remembered 7 

n. The Ideae of the Chuech — 

As TO the Peinciple or Her Constitution 14 

As TO EiTUAi Forms and Ceeemonial Emblems .... 21 

As TO Hee Peotesting Character 28 

As TO Her Indiyiduae and Corporate Liee 31 

As to tele Creed which Her Catholic INIembers 

maintain 39 

As TO the Extent of Her Existing Relations 45 

Appendix : — 



'NOTB ON THE RoMAN ScHISM AND THE EnGLISH ChUECH . . 65 



THE 

IDEAL OF THE ENGLISH CHUKCH. 



I. 

A DISTINCTION TO BE REMEMBERED. 



Christianity according to the Divine idea, and Chris- 
tianity according to its human embodiment, is to be 
regarded in a distinct manner. Unless this be done, we 
can never pay due reverence to the abstract glory of the 
one, or comprehend the palpable inconsistencies of the 
other. The necessity for this distinction may be proved 
instantaneously, if we compare the attributes of the be- 
liever as he is described in the letter of the Word, with 
the development of the same as bodied forth in the 
experience of life. In the former case a Christian is a 

ROYAL priest, a HOLY PERSON, a PECULIAR PERSON. In 

him eternity hallows time, heaven approaches earth, and 
the moral glories of God's revealed character are seen 
to be reflected on the mirror of man's graces. Here all 
appears high and heavenly ; nor can we yield ourselves 
to the descriptions of such a believer, as set forth by the 
Divine Spirit, without being elevated into a region of 
purity and a realm of privilege, far beyond the culture 



8 



THE IDEAL OF 



of mere intellect to reach, and the aspirations of senti» 
ment to attain. But when we revert to the latter case, 
and contemplate Christianity as unfolded in the erring- 
forms of human discipleship, — alas ! what infirmities and 
inconsistencies on all sides meet our view, and mortify 
our hopes ! Nay, to such an extent does the contrast 
between the ideal of the Bible, and the actual of man, 
in Divine things, exist, — that perchance the infidel has 
derived stronger arguments against the Gospel from the 
frailties and sins of those who profess to be guided by 
its principles, than he has from the philosophy of those 
who have openly rejected it. 

And now let us venture to assert, that we must proceed 
in analogy with the preceding distinction, when we come 
to reason on the faculties and functions of our Anglican 
Church. Estimated according to Her own Idea, or 
theoretic Conception, as exhibited in Her Constitution, 
Liturgy, Creeds, and Articles, — we may proclaim with 
truthful modesty, that she approximates directly to the 
Apostolic platform. But when we examine Her positive 
influence and practical results, we must adopt a humbler 
tone, because we are then compelled to move within a 
lower range of observation. Were this distinction be- 
tween our Church in the ideal and in the actual remem- 
bered, controversy would often be mitigated, and charity 
increased. However mysterious it may appear to us, 
man must acknowledge what God is pleased to allow, — 
namely, the incidental failure of moral remedies which 
His own wisdom hath appointed. 

Let the spirit of the above considerations be remem- 
bered, and then the view which we are about to take of 
the NATURAL TENDENCIES of the English Church, will 
not be questioned by those who believe the transforming 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



9 



energies of a spiritual life to be communicated through 
her instrumentality. 

The Church, we know, is an ordinance of God, 
which is intended to direct the moral nature of mankind 
upward towards Divinity, and forward towards eter- 
nity. But against this, how vehement, multiform, and 
incessant are the counteractions with which she has to 
contend ! Her office, indeed, is heavenly and sublime : 
to lift man out of the debasement of the senses and the 
passions into an ethereal region of sanctity and love ; to 
hold ever before the purged eye of his faith " Christ 
AND Him Crucified" and glorified, as His faultless 
Archetype ; and so to attract him off from earthly pur- 
suits and finite good, to celestial pleasures and infinite 
perfections. Such we repeat is the duty of our Church : 
to this all her Rites, Sacraments, and Doctrines tend. 
But daily the British people are becoming more and more 
luxurious and sensually inclined ; and so intensely secular, 
as to consider everything but Mammon, and manufactures, 
and incomes, something for poets and priests to admire, 
but not for the wise of this world to pursue. In one 
word, the practical habits of our country are growing 
ATHEISTICAL and unspiritual. "The things that are 
seen' so pamper the minds of the majority with their 
incessant excitements, as to destroy all intellectual appe- 
tite for the calmer and deeper claims of " the things 
which are unseen^ Here is the great antagonist of a 
spiritual Church — even the sad materialism and sinful 
luxury of the times. 

In addition to opposing forces such as these, the 
Church has to contend against difficulties and dangers 
which beset her from the sad conflict which eccle- 
siastical PARTY at the present moment is promoting. 



10 



THE IDEAL OF 



Yet, far from the English Churchman be undutifnl 
words, unloyal thoughts, and unholy sarcasms. For ii 
he looks on the past, — can he trace our Church from its 
apostolical planting through successive ages downwards, 
and mark how wondrously her Lord and Head hath pro- 
tected, guided, chastened, and controlled her, — without 
prayers and presentiments of the deepest order? From 
what invasions hath she recovered, what shocks with- 
stood, what persecutions overcome, what heresies silenced, 
and over what martyrdoms, fires, and fetters hath she 
triumphed? And who can contrast her imparalleled 
consistency at the Reformation, — when she rejected 
alike Roman falsehood and schismatic novelty, while 
she RETAINED Evangclic truth in combination with 
Apostolic order, — and not perceive " the good hand of 
God" upon her? And if with what she has been, he 
also reflects on what, under the promised guidance of her 
Divine Master, she may yet become, — even the Educatrix 
of nations and the great Ambassadress for Christ to the 
world's Gentile myriads, — how can he view with any 
but a religious eye, every danger that threatens her 
catholicity, and every schism that would rend her unity? 

While then the plotting Romanist, and his unnatural 
ally, the Political Dissenter, in combination with a mis- 
cellaneous rabble of Deists, Socinians, philosophic In- 
fidels, Chartists, Socialists, and all who abhor the " things 
which belong unto Csesar," — while these are malevo- 
lently enraptured with the bare idea of our Church's 
downfall, her faithful son will behold her warfare with 
reverence, sympathy, and prayer. He has not read his- 
tory in vain ; and therefore cannot be blind to the unde- 
niable fact that our Church has ever been bound up with 
the solid glories, the substantial interests, and the per- 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



11 



manent welfare of the Empire. To a great extent we 
may say, that with all her allowed faults, sins, and incon- 
sistencies, and after a candid and full confession of her 
manifold short-comings, declensions, and carnalities, — yet 
has she been on the whole the peerless blessing of our 
country. For in so far as Her sacred function has been 
duly exercised, and her spiritual apparatus successfully 
applied, the Church of England has proved the spring of 
national piety, the root of public morals, the guardian 
of political liberty, the protector of social rights, and the 
universal sanctifier of every home she has visited, and 
every heart where her doctrines have been permitted to 
prevail. It is not then that a loyal Churchman is ready 
to say, with King James, " 'No Church, no King ;" but 
more than this : he is convinced that if the national 
Church of these realms were overthrown, she would not 
be alone in her ruins ; but around her prostrated temples 
and demolished shrines would lie scattered in awful 
waste, public religion, national morality, and private 
virtue. 

The scoffing democrat indeed will wag his audacious 
tongue against her faults, and delight to expose what he 
calls her defects ; and the Papist will be all alive to every 
seeming rent or threatened division in her unity, which 
appear to contrast her discords with that hollow unity 
his own apostate communion enjoys, under the headship 
of that antichristian invention, called a Pope. But in 
opposition to these mockers, gratefully may the true 
Catholic call to mind, that his beloved Church is not only 
associated with a " noble army of saints and martyrs ;" 
but that whatever has made the name of Briton a talis- 
manic word among the nations of the earth, is more or 
less connected with the doctrines she has professed, the 



12 



THE IDEAL OF 



principles she has maintained, and the vast influences she 
has wielded. Religion, science, art, literature, and elo- 
quence, — had not the Church of England been preserved^ 
how different perchance would the inspiring history of 
these have been ? In truth, as regards theological litera- 
ture, by the confession even of her bitterest foes, she has, 
by her magnificent authorship, her profound erudition, 
and polemical masterpieces, laid the instructed intellect 
of mankind under an obligation which can never expire, 
while such a thing as spiritual appreciation remains. It 
is thus then, while he regards our Church as indeed the 
very apple of the nation's eye, the catholic Churchman 
will survey the agitations which now disturb her princi- 
ples within, and also the perils which assail her security 
from without, with thoughts "too deep for tears ;" and yet 
not with morbid dejection nor despair. He is taught by 
a consoling Volume which cannot err, that as a true 
branch of Christ's apostolical and universal Church, " He 
who keepeth our Zion will not slumber nor sleep," but 
indeed be " with her always unto the end of the world." 
Nor let it be unremembered, that amid the dimness and 
perplexity of things in which we are now enveloped, — 
there is much of cheering promise, which demands from 
every patriotic believer the glowing acknowledgment of 
gratitude and praise. For besides what we have already 
suggested as material for thanksgiving, let the following 
FACTS be taken into account when we speak of our 
ecclesiastical condition. The extension of churches is 
proceeding at a glorious rate ; district societies, headed 
by the clergy of their respective localities, are multiplied 
on all sides; diocesan schools are being numerously 
formed ; our three great societies, the " Propagation of 
the Gospel," the Society for " Promoting Christian 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



13 



Knowledge," and the " Church Missionary Society," are 
zealously at work, and spreading the triumphs of the 
Redeemer's truth and the infallible Word of God almost 
to the very confines of humanity : the English Episco- 
pate is being established amid our colonial possessions 
and dependencies ; on the magic soil of Palestine itself 
we shall soon have erected an Episcopal Temple, where 
the once crucified Jesus will be worshipped on Calvary's 
Hill, in the prayers and chants of our unrivalled 
Liturgy ; popular education and means for instructing 
the infant poor are now engaging the devoted attention 
of our bishops and clergy ; — and these surely are things 
for which we may well thank God and take courage ! 
And let us append to this brighter view of our position 
another consideration ; namely, that the savage yell 
which the unprincipled destructives of our day set up 
against the English Church, is a proof that with all their 
pretended scorn for her constitution and claims, — -there is 
a Divine charm in her apostolic Orders, primitive Li- 
turgy, evangelic Creed, Sacramental privileges, and ca- 
tholic orthodoxy, beyond this world, with all its devilish 
wisdom, to contravene. 



14 



THE IDEAL OF 



II. 

ON THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH AS TO THE GREAT 
PRINCIPLE OF HER CONSTITUTION. 

Since Christ is " the All in All," of true Keligion — may we 
venerate our own ecclesiastical mother, the Apostolic 
Church of England. Let the adherents of the Romish 
schism in this country pray for her downfall ; let those, 
whose Papal yearnings for a spurious catholicity are not 
satisfied with our Church, strive to betray her interests, 
distort her doctrines, and abuse her services after a Jesui- 
tical fashion ; let the unbelieving radical imprecate curses 
on her powers and prerogatives, and the political Dis- 
senter plot and scheme for her ruin ; or, lastly, let the 
morbid victims of Trentine Theology, mutter their treason 
and whisper their dislike against her formularies and 
creeds : — but be it our privilege, as it is our duty, ever- 
more to say, " Peace be within thy walls;" — when we 
" forget thee," may " our right hands forget their 
cunning !" And why should we not thus supplicate the 
God of heaven to protect our venerated Zion, when her 
Orders and Sacraments, her Rites and Ceremonies, her 
Services and Chants, her Symbols, Articles, and Homilies, 
do each and all, with unvarying fidelity and firmness, 
maintain this blessed doctrine, — that " Christ" is " All 
and in All." But in order to illustrate how truly she does 
respond to the theology of Scripture, let us venture to 

Contemplate the great Principle of her Constitution. 

Now as to the Episcopate, it would be quite out of the 
province of a transient allusion such as this, to repeat the 
inviolable arguments which learning, genius, eloquence, 
and piety have produced as evidence that the Church of 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



15 



England is built " upon the foundations of apostles and 
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner- 
stone." A Divine commission, authenticating all her 
agencies, inspiring all her privileges, and controlling all her 
responsibilities, is at once the basis of her claim, and the 
interpretation of her character. Holding fast a principle 
which is moveless as the throne of the Almighty, that 
the Maker and the Master of the Church is Christ alo7ie, and 
that all power, authority, and administration, with regard 
to the channels of grace, are valid only as emanating 
from and acting by Him, — Episcopacy with her is neither 
a simple apostolical institution, which might be argued 
down by reasoning guess-work into a temporal arrange- 
ment ; nor is it merely a rational inference from primitive 
antiquity ; and still less is it the cold production of mean 
and miserable expediency ; — but neither more nor less 
than an express institute of our Lord Jesus Christ himself, 
as the Head of ministerial commission.^ " As my father 

* The phrase " Apostolical Succession," from its vague and some- 
what pUable meaning, is the source of much acrimony, ridicule, and 
controversy, in the popular writings of our day. But is there not one 
lundamental mistake at the root of all this confusion and bitterness ? 
riz. has not the question. What is essential to a canonical ministry, as 
ibunded by our Lord, confirmed by his apostles, and continued with 
unbroken adherence up to the time of the Reformation, been con- 
fused with another, which is very distinct, viz. What is essential to 
salvation? Here is a double error constantly at work in this discus- 
sion. The one party argue, as if the commission of the clergy could 
he of human origination ; and the other sometimes express themselves 
as if mere episcopacy were absolutely essential to salvation. No 
wonder when these extremes meet that in the clash of the conflict 
truth disappears, and charity itself evaporates away. Meekly and 
truly did the late Bishop Hobart state the distinction, when thus 
speaking of the sacred and spiritually-minded Churchman, — " He pre- 
sumes not to arraign the fitness of the peculiar constitution of Christ's 



16 



THE IDEAL OF 



sent me, so I send you." In these syllables are enshrined 
the true and living elements of whatsoever constitutes 
Evangelic Churchmanship in the Church of England. 
Ordination to ecclesiastical offices, and the administration 
of the means of grace, together with their adjuncts, de- 

mystical body, wisely and humbly judging that the Divine personage 
who came to save the world knew by what institutions this all-merci- 
ful object was to be best accomplished. So far, indeed^ from confining 
SALVATION to a State of visible union with Christ's mystical hodtj, he 
extends the benefits of the Redeemer s merits and grace to the pious and 
SINCERE of all sects, and of all nations ^ 

In reference to what may be legitimately inferred from the phrase 
" Apostolical succession,"^ the following quotation from Bishop Hall, 
and also from Field, will be found full of pertinency : — " These {i. e. 
the apostles) great ambassadors of Christ sustained more persons than 
one. They comprehended in themselves the whole hierarchy : they 
were Christians, presbyters, bishops, apostles. So it was they were 
apostles immediately called, miraculously gifted, infallibly guided, 
universally charged. Thus they had not, they could not have, any 
successors. They were faithful Church governors, appointed by Christ 
to order and settle the affairs of his spiritual kingdom, and therein 
(beside the preaching and baptizing common to them with other 
ministers) to ordain a succession of the great administrators of His 
Church. THUS they were, would be, must be, succeeded."" — (Episco- 
pacy by Divine Right, parts 2 and 3.) 

"The divines doe note that there were foure things proper and 
peculiar to the apostles, and not communicable to any other of the 
ministers of Christ, appointed by Him for the gathering of his saints. 
The first was immediate vocation ; the second, 17 fallibility of judgment ; 
the third, generality of commission, to doe all things pertaining to the 
minister of salvation, in all places, towards all persons : the fourth, the 
speaking in all the tongues and languages of the world, the knowledge 
of all secrets, and power to confirm their doctrine by signs and mira- 
cles, and by imposition of their hands, to give the like miraculous gifts 
of the Spirit to others. * * * * these things were 

reserved as proper and peculiar unto the apostles, and not communi- 
cated to any other in their time, so are they not passed over to their 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



17 



pendencies, and connexions, may all be traced to this as 
their pure and only fountain. Mere human will can 
no more create a minister than it can create a Ke- 
deemer; the power in the one case and the Person in 
the other are inseparable. " All power is given unto 
ME in heaven and earth. Go ye, THEREFOUE, and 
teach all nations (i. e. disciple all nations), baptizing them 
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe ail things what- 
soever I have commanded you : and, lo ! I AM with you 

ALWAY, EVEN TO THE END OF THE WORLD." What 

power St. Paul considered this commission to mean and 
to convey, his Epistles to Timothy and Titus amply un- 
fold : e. g. among other decisive passages, weigh the 
following : — " I charge thee before God, and the elect 

angels, &;c., &:c, lay hands (Acts vi. 6 ; xiii. 3) sud~ 

denly on no man (1 Tim. v. 21, 22) : the things which thou 
hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same 
COMMIT THOU TO FAITHFUL men, wlio sliall be able to 
teach others also." (2 Tim. ii. 2.) " For this cause left I 
thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the 
things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every 
city, as I had appointed thee." (Titus i. 5.) 

And now let us select from an immense " cloud of 
witnesses" to the Divine origin of Episcopacy, three. 
The first is Hooker, who, in the fourth section of the 

aftercomers by succession ; hut instead of immediate calling, we have 
new succession ; instead of infallibility of judgment, the direction of 
their writing, guiding us to the finding out of the truth ; instead of 
general commission, particular assignation of churches to rule, and 
parts of Christ's flocke to feede ; instead of miraculous gifts, and the 
apostles' power to confere them, a settled course of schools and uni- 
versities, fitting men for the work of the ministry, kc—Field on the 
Church. 

B 



18 



THE IDEAL OF 



Preface to his almost inspired ork on " Ecclesiastical 
Polity," thus challenges the admirers of Genevan novel- 
ties. — " The government against which ye band your- 
selves has been observed every where throughout all 
generations and ages of the christian world, no 
Church ever perceiving the Word of God to be 
AGAINST IT. We require you to find out but one Church 
upon the face of the whole earth that hath been ordered 
by your discipline, and hath not been ordered b}^ ours, 
that is to say, by Episcopal regiment, since the time 
that the blessed apostles were here conversant." Our 
second witness is Jeremy Taylor, who, in his Intro- 
duction to Episcopacy Asserted," thus delivers himself. 
*'The catholic practice of Christendom for 1600 years 
is so insupportable a prejudice against the enemies of 
Episcopacy, that they must bring admirable evidence of 
Scripture, or a clear revelation proved by miracles, or a 
contrary undoubted tradition apostolical for themselves, 
or else hope for no belief against the prescribed posses- 
sion of so many ages." Our last testimony is from 
Bishop Hobart's " Apology for Apostolic Order." The 
discernment and sobriety of his words will not be denied 
even by those who may question his argument. 

" Episcopalians do not contend that in an extensive 
and unqualified sense there is any form of Church 
government of Divine right. Church government is 
often applied, by Episcopal writers, in a confined sense, to 
the orders of the ministry, and in this confined signification 
Episcopal government is of Divine right ; but in a more 
extensive sense. Church government excludes the -par- 
ticular organization by which ecclesiastical power is exer- 
cised, and discipline is administered, and the rights and 
ceremonies by which public worship is conducted. In 



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19 



this extensive signification, Episcopalians maintain that 
there is no precise form of Church government of Divine 
right ; the organization of ecclesiastical authority, the 
forms of discipline, the rites and ceremonies of public 
worship, they maintain are not laid down in Scripture, 
and therefore by common consent and authority they 
may be altered, abridged, enlarged, amended, or other- 
wise disposed of as may seem most convenient for the 
edification of the people." — Preface to American Prayer - 
Book. 

" The single point for which they contend is, that 
Episcopacy was instituted by Christ and his Apostles ; 
that the three grades of ministers — bishops, priests, and 
deacons, with their appropriate powers — are of Divine 
and Apostolical institution." 

"The GOVERNMENT of the Church, therefore, is evidently 
not to be identified with its ministry. The former, as 
including discipline, rites, and ceremonies, may be altered 
by human authority ; the latter can only be altered by 
that Divine authority which originally instituted it. If we 
change the distinctive grades and powers of the ministry, 
and take power of ordination from the hands in which it 
was originally vested, we make the ministry of human 

INSTEAD OF DiVINE AUTHORITY !" 

Nor let those who are accustomed to take low views of 
the ministerial Commission imagine, that to maintain the 
Divine origin of Episcopacy is the sign of an earthly mind, 
and the symbol of a bigoted heart. On the contrary, 
churchmen who value Episcopacy rightly, thereby intend 
not to gratify the vaunting pretensions of man, but to 
reverence what they believe the official mind of the Holy 
Ghost^ touching the orders, sacraments, and ordinances of 
His Church. And should these remarks meet the eye of 

B 2 



20 



THE IDEAL OF 



a sectarian objector, wlio is so uncharitable as to assert 
that a love for Episcopacy and an experience of spi- 
rituality are incompatible in the same person, — we hope 
he will read the following death-scene of Hooker, as 
described by his exquisite biographer. Here at least is 
one proof how a man can maintain the scriptural Ideal of 
Office in the Church, and yet lie in humble and heavenly 
self-renunciation at the foot of the Cross. 

"The doctor left him at night, with a promise to return 
early the day following, which he did, and then found 
him better in appearance, deep in contemplation, and not 
inclinable to discourse, wdiich gave the doctor occasion to 
inquire his present thoughts; to which he replied, "That 
he was meditating the number and nature of angels, and 
their blessed obedience and order, without which, peace 
could not be in heaven ; and, oh ! that it might be so on 
earth !" After which words he said, " I have lived to see 
this world is made up of perturbations, and I have been 
long preparing to leave it, and gathering comfort for 
the dreadful hour of making my account with God, 
which I now apprehend to be near ; and though I have, 
by His grace, loved Him from, my youth, and feared Him 
m my age, and laboured to have a conscience void 
of offence to Him and to all men ; yet, if thou, oh ! 
Lord, be extreme to mark what I have done amiss, 
who can abide it ? And, therefore, where I have failed, 
Lord, show mercy to me : for I plead not my righteous- 
ness, but the forgiveness of my unrighteousness, for His 
merits who died to purchase a pardon for penitent 
sinners. And since I owe thee a death, Lord, let it not 
be terrible, and then take thine own time ! I submit to 
it ! Let not mine, O Lord, but let thy will be done." 



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21 



III. 

ON THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH AS TO RITUAL FORMS 
AND CEREMONIAL EMBLEMS. 

In the religion of Jesus Christ there is a body of visible 
Forms and a soul of invisible Principles, which respond 
to the twofold attributes which compose our human 
nature, even that of ip.aterial fiesh, and immaterial spirit 
And in what does the perfection of practical devotion 
consist, but in maintaining an harmonious counterbalance 
between these parts of our religion, and these properties 
of our nature ? When is the life of faith more fruitful, 
and the science of our worshipping souls more heavenly 
and complete, — than when it yields to our senses such a 
proportion of outward rite as they require, and to our 
SOULS such an amount of inward doctrines as they need ? 
The entire man is redeemed by Christ, and therefore the 
entire man must worship Christ. But how can the Saviour 
be adored by our human entireness, and a religion commen- 
surate with our entireness be put into action ? Conse- 
quently a liturgy exclusively spiritual, would be alto- 
gether unsuited to man in his earthly condition as an 
embodied soul. Were it all viewless spirit, what would 
become of his sensible faculties ? Were it all visible 
form, what would become of his spiritual faculties ? But 
let him be provided with a religious apparatus respon- 
sively adapted to meet the distinct requirements of his 
compound nature, and the whole humanity is then sup- 
plied with a sacred nourishment suitable to its weaknesses 
and wants. 

In theory, of course, few will deny these observations 
to be grounded on a correct interpretation of Christ's 



22 



THE IDEAL OF 



religion and man's need. But, alas ! in practice, how 
often have the Church and her children violated the 
harmony which the Redeemer hath established between 
His faith and our faculties. 

In every age a bias of disturbing prejudice hath 
dislocated the proportion which He designed ever to be 
preserved between the body and soul of Christianity, and 
the body and soul of the Christian. Sometimes this bias 
has tended to a religion exclusively ad extra, or one of 
embodied rites ; and again in another period the bias 
has inclined to a religion exclusively ad intra, or one of 
internal experiences. Thus, more or less, there has ever 
been (especially since the Reformation) a great conten- 
tion where there ought to have been a glorious con- 
cord. One class of theologians have unwisely separated 
the means too far from the end in reference to salvation, 
and the result has been — ritual formalism. Again, another 
species of theologians have separated the end too far 
from the means, and the consequence has been — spiri- 
tual fanaticism. In either case this is indeed to be sorely 
lamented, as tending not more to dishonour the wondrous 
perfections of the Redeemer's economy, than to disturb 
the proportions of man's being. Would that the via 
media, along which apostles, saints, and martyrs walked 
in fraternal unity and loving concord, towards their com- 
mon heaven, had been reverently kept ! This indeed is 
at once the primitive, sincere, and catholic way. This is 
a path which verges neither to the right hand nor to the 
left ; which tends not to one extreme or to another • 
but leads man by a direct line straight towards his fina^ 
home. " What God hath joined together let not man 
put asunder." (Matt. xix. 26.) Here is a due regard for 
the use of means as connected with an end ; and what 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



23 



" God" hath put asunder let " not man" " join to- 
gether ;" here is also a right esteem for the eiid as distinct 
from the means. 

Extremes on this point, as in most others connected 
with our relative acts, are to be avoided. External forms, 
sacramental ceremonies, and symbolic observances can 
never be despised by a soundly spiritual mind. The 
decent pomp, the ordered rite, and all the expressive ad- 
juncts of public worship, will ever assume a holy im- 
portance in the hearts of those who, while they remem- 
ber " God is a Spirit," recollect man hath a body like- 
wise. Convinced on the one hand that the mere excite- 
ment of the senses is not religion, they are equally 
assured on the other, that to enlist them on the side of 
religion, is both wise and necessary. No thinking person 
therefore, who has really studied the constitutional re- 
quirements of human nature, will presume to ridicule 
those auxiliary influences of religious forms and rites, 
which the Divine Architect of that nature intended for 
the Church's visible edification and uniting bond. 

But when the exterior functions of religious worship 
are lauded to an extravagant height, and all the complex 
minutise of a most fatiguing ritual are enforced upon 
worshippers, as if the seeds of the soul's eternity were 
enclosed within them — or when that which is but an 
instrumental means is magnified into a Jinal ahn, — then it 
is that the instinctive pharisaism of our fallen nature is 
unwisely and unsafely flattered. Nothing, we venture 
with sacred confidence to assert, but the popish bigotry 
of a petty mind will dispute this opinion. When the 
sensible is allowed to overwhelm the spiritual in Christian 
worship, the Almighty seems to retire behind the thick 
veilings of rites, and sensual drapery of forms ; the fer- 



24 



THE IDEAL OF 



vour of a God-realizing devotion begins to evaporate, 
and the rational worshipper of a spiritual Jehovah is in 
danger of being transmuted into a kind of liturgical 
machine, who blindly worships " he knows not ichatr 

But j^erhaps the true and only rectifier of our concep- 
tions touching the principles and proportions of sacred 
worship, as offered by the whole man, is this sublime 
fact that, — Christ is " in All " the ordinances of true 
religion. When we say this, our meaning is, that He is 
in them one and all, as their supreme End and Object; 
so that if ceremonial institutes and religious acts be 
followed and performed without a distinct reference unto 
the Redeemer as the soul and substance of their significance 
and effect — they are ritual mockeries and nought beside. 
To render this more j)lain, let us in theory imagine Christ 
to be extracted out of our religious forms ; or let us sup- 
pose something else to be substituted in His holy place, 
and then, — what description shall we give of symbolic 
worship and liturgical rites ? For instance, let us con- 
sider Sacraments, Sermons, and Prayers, and if Christ 
be divorced from them, what have we left but an emble- 
matic skeleton, an intellectual homily, and a fruitless 
supplication ? For what are Christian sacraments but 
signs and seals of our incorporation into Christ and His 
Church \ What are Christian sermons but exhortations 
to bring us into the love and likeness of Christ ? And 
what are Christian prayers but adorations to the Trinity, 
offered by the faithful that Christ may become theirs 
and they become Christ's, for ever? Thus too with all 
the subordinate rites and subsidiary ceremonies of the 
Church, — Christ is at once both their Alpha and Omega, 
their first principle and their last end. Indeed even as 
the ritual of ancient Judaism would be a libel on the 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



25 



Divine wisdom, if Christ were not the predestined ante- 
type, to Whose Person and Merits all its shadows re- 
ferred, — so would the liturgy of modern evangelism be a 
satire on human necessity, if Christ were not realized 
there as ruling " in " and over " All." 

But if a SUBSTITUTION of something else instead of our 
Lord Christ, as the terminal glory to which all cere- 
monial ordinances and institutes tend, be imagined, — v/e 
shall find in this case likewise our religion to be a hollow 
name and little more. Now that, to a great extent, in 
practical effects such a substitution does take place will 
scarcely be denied : and therefore it can never be " out of 
season" for the minister of Christ to impress on his own 
conscience, and on that of others whom he can influence, 
that unless w^e are " looking unto Jesus" in the glass of 
the ordinances, we are really deceiving our souls. As 
believers, we are " predestinated to be conformed to the 
image of His Son;' and this Divine conformation of 
man unto Christ through the power of His Spirit, is the 
grand achievement which the instruments of grace are 
designed to complete. Unless then He who is the life 
and light of our redeemed natui'e, be ever adored as the 
central inspiration of all rites, ceremonies, and sacra- 
ments, — we may be ritualists, but we are not Christians ; 
we have an abstract creed, but not an embodied Christ ; 
a doctrinal religion, but not a Personal God. Let us 
then be thankful that the services of our Church warn 
us against substituting any of the following ends for a 
spiritual conjunction with Him whose we are, and whose 
name we bear. (1.) The regalement of the senses by the 
bland attractions of music, sculpture, architecture, and 
painting. (2.) The excitement of the emotions, by the 
power and pathos of moving appeals and high-wrought 



26 



THE IDEAL OF 



arguments. (3.) The morbid gratification of an exacting 
mind, wliicli loves to feed on doctrines, while the heart 
is famished for want of moral nutriment. (4.) A zeal for 
an articled orthodox}^, which is content with terms that 
adorn the head, rather than truths which influence the 
life. (5.) A providential regard for the good opinion of 
the world and the gracious esteem of friends, both of 
which would be endangered were we to neglect our 
Church and her observances. (6.) The indolent pleasure 
of yielding to a mere habit in coming to the Lord's house 
on Sundays. (7.) A legal desire to proj)itiate God by a 
regular discharge of religious duties, rather than by faith 
and repentance through Jesus Christ. (Lastly.) A 
pharisaic complacency in the ritual discharge of Sabbatic 
duties, as if going to church and going to heaven were 
synonymous. — Numerous others might of com'se be 
adduced, but assuredly these are among some of those 
false ends and deceitful lures which thousands j)ursue, 
and by which thousands are beguiled, in bringing their 
souls and bodies under the commingled power of Church 
doctrines and ordinances. Through the guidance of 
God's Holy Spirit, the only remedy for this suicidal 
fraud is', the prayerful acknowledgment of Christ as 
being "in All" the institutes of religion, as their only 
pure and perfect end. Therefore, both in jDublic worship 
and in private adoration, let us ever keep this sublime 
object before our conscience, — namely, a conformity unto 
Christ by grace on earth, that we may hereafter have a 
communion with Christ in glory above. The means are 
for the end ; let us not reverse the matter, and treat the 
means as though they icere the end : moreover, as God 
hath allied certain ends with corresponding means, let us 
not presume to reach the one, while we are mad enough 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



27 



to despise the other. Above all, let us remember that — 
" as IN Adam all die," so it is not by forms, fancies, or 
feelings, but by being vitally and spiritually " in Christ, 
we are made alive." Compared with this, all the formal 
outworks of religion, however orthodox and sincere, are 
fond dreams and futile delusions. And to prove that we 
do not overrate the distinction between a religion ex- 
ternally kept, and a Christ internally experienced,— let 
us hear the sentiments of one, whose oriental richness of 
taste and luxury of imagination rendered him. peculiarly 
open to all the fascinations of artistical effect, in the 
Church he loved. " It is but an ill sign of holiness when 
a man is busy in troubling himself and his superior in 
little scruples and fantastic opinions about things not 
concerning the life of religion or the pleasure of God^ or the 
excellences of the Spirit. A good man knows how to 
please God, how to converse with him, how to advance 
the kingdom of the Lord Jesus, to set forward holiness, 
and the love of God and of his brother ; and he knows 
that there is no godliness in spending our time and our 
talk, our heart and our spirits, about the garments and 
outsides of religion ; . . . and he that for that which 
is no part of religion destroys religion, is a man of fancy 
and of the world ; but he gives but an ill account that he 
is a man of God and a son of the Spirit." — (Jeremy 
Tayloe's " Via Intelligenciee.") 



28 



THE IDEAL OF 



IV. 

ON THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH AS TO HER PROTESTING 
CHARACTER. 

We may as well renounce the name of men, because 
some people wlio bear it are brutal, base, and unbelieving, 
as reject tlie title " Protestants," — because sects of dif- 
ferent enormity arrange tliemselves under its nominal 
shelter. Secondly; we assert that genuine Protes- 
tantism has no more to do with barren negatives 
than it has to do vrith positive delusions. On the 
contrary, it asserts positively, broadly, and intelligibly, an 
actual creed and a defined theology ; because it is rooted 
in this doctrine which came directly from the throne of 
the Almighty, — viz., every single man is a responsible unit, 
whom the Incarnation and Redemption hy Christ has brought 
into an individual and independent position before God. The 
grand idea, the central principle and leading power of 
what a catholic Churchman means by his Protestanism, 
is involved in this, — God hath commanded every man 
TO believe, repent, and be reconciled unto God 
personally, as a single and accountable agent. Kow 
the Church, as a body, cannot be to this or that individual 
what by an absurd fiction the Romish apostaey presumes 
itself to be, — a kind of spiritual proxy for her members; 
as if in fact, she were a repentant, believing, and pra}- ing 
machine to represent her people. Moreover, supposing 
we are right in saying that a belief in justification by 
faith, election, and the Word of God as the supreme rule 
of faith, to be one of the primary elements involved in 
the Reformation, — with what decent regard to truth can 
it be asserted, — sound Protestantism is nothing but a 
barren negative ? Again; the word "Protestant" has 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



29 



many shades of meaning wliicli oiiglit not to be con- 
founded. It may, for instance, refer to certain princes in 
Germany who signed a memorable " Protest :" some- 
times, it has been applied to political Dissenterism and 
rationalistic theology; occasionally, civil rebellion has 
borrowed the name : moreover, in our country, it has been 
chiefly employed to signify oar ecclesiastical Protest 
against the abominations, idolatries, and delusions of the 
Roman communion. But the term " Protestant," as used 
by SOUND Churchmen, is employed in the pregnant sense 
which Jeremy Taylor perchance meant, when speaking of 
our Church he made this striking remark, — " Protestant 
IS her name, and Catholic her surname." Hence, 
all this fastidious horror at the word " Protestant" is 
one of those affectations of a school in a pedantic 
caste of men who call themselves " Catholics," — which 
no Christian who values sobriety and discernment 
should indulge. The orthodox Protestant is a 
SOUND Catholic ; and the orthodox Catholic is 
A sound Protestant : the two elements in both are dis- 
tinct and different, and yet not opposites or contraries. 
Protestantism and Catholicism are two principles equally 
required to the perfection of an apostolical Church ; and 
ought to be allowed to co-operate in peaceful harmony 
towards one common good, and glorious consummation. 
By the one, man's responsible distinctness, as singly 
and personally the subject of electing grace and spiritual 
life in Christ Jesus is mainly understood : but by the 
other man's corporate state, or sympathetic alliance 
with an ecclesiastical " body" or " kingdom," is intended. 
Nothing therefore can be more unphilosophical and un- 
scriptural, than to array these two principles of Pro- 
testantism and Catholicity in battle against each other. 



30 



THE IDEAL OF 



One might as well complain of the centripetal and cen- 
trifugal forces in astronomy, without which, in combined 
action we know there would be no revolution of the 
planets round their central orb. And need we add, 
that in our Church there is an ample provision both 
for the element of Protestantism and the element of 
Catholicity to act, in their conjunct and correlative order? 
In our creeds, articles, litany, and sacraments, man, both 
in his individual responsibility, and in his collective 
capacity, is perpetually supplied with motive, and in- 
structed by doctrine. And we may further add, that the 
Romanizing party in their rancour against a term which 
the noblest and the most accomplished of English Church- 
men have adopted, — are as ignorant of man's real con- 
stitution, as of the Church's true perfection. For look at 
man when under the principle of individual life alone, 
— and see how selfish, isolate, morbid, and uncharitable 
he becomes! His own taste, pleasure, enjoyment, and 
aggrandizement, form the pivot on which his exclusive 
heart revolves. On the other hand, regard man when 
absorbed altogether into the collective life of an eccle- 
siastical corporation, — and mark how the spirit of a 
manful independence wanes within him ; how soon all 
mental energy and moral force begin to languish ; till at 
length he terminates in becoming little more than a 
minute portion of passive existence, in the vast me- 
chanism of an ecclesiastical constitution. Thus then, 
whether you look at the nature of man or the constitution 
of the Church, the blended action and harmonizing pre- 
sence of both Protestantism and Catholicism are alike 
required for the perfection of either. Protestantism is not 
therefore the mere contradiction of the Pope's lie, but 
the assertion of God's truth also. 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 



31 



V. 

ON THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH AS TO INDIVIDUAL AND 
CORPORATE LIFE. 

The Redeemer is the " Head of every man." Bat is 
tliat ALL we intend by believers in Christ ? Are we only 
to select that part of his revelation which leads to per- 
sonal experience, and neglect all the rest which autho- 
rizes and endows social communion, as an essential 
element in apostolical religion? And it is precisely at 
this point so many of our brethren break down ; and are 
utterly incompetent to contend with those who not only 
believe that Jesus Christ founded a religion for man, 
but also organized an express society, to be adminis- 
tered by positive laws, and expressed by fixed rites, 
definite sacraments, and ceremonial acts, — through 
which His revealed system of faith and doctrine should 
act itself out upon the hearts and consciences of men. The 
Christianity therefore of Christ is not simply a spiritual 
influence felt by the individual believer ; but it is also 
an incorporated membership with an universal body, 
or KINGDOM of fellow-partakers in this influence ; and 
which influence is itself a life dispensed over the whole 
body from one Head, Jesus Christ. It seems therefore 
that it is not according " to the mind of Christ" that our 
religion should be nothing more than personal experience, 
or individual life, however spiritual, holy, and rapt it 
may be thought ; but that we should be "joint heirs" of 
Him, and be compacted into one body of communing 
hearts and minds, where the selfishness of the indivi- 
dual will be counterpoised by the corrective laAv of the 
SOCIAL life of Jesus. Now we fear the root of all secta- 



32 



THE IDEAL OF 



rian errors lies in this : namely, that although Christ 
leaves man no choice for his religious system, — he does 
permit him to choose any form by which that system 
can be developed. In other words, Sectarians think the 
external and the formal in Christianity are nothing ; and 
that the internal and spiritual are all. Hence as a 
natural consequence, they practically deny that Jesus 
Christ established a visible corporation, or exter- 
nally ORGANIZED Church on earth ; and conclude that 
if a man belong to that ecclesiastical invention, that 
anomalous ideal, and imaginary home of all the sects 
and schisms under the sun, yclept some invisible 
Church ! — -why he ^believes all which the Gospel re- 
quires. Kow we enter our protest against this ; we 
solemnly and in the name of Zion's crucified and crowned 
King, appeal against this theory, as equally opposed to 

the GLORY OF THE REDEEMER and the WELFARE OF THE 

Redeemed. On the contrary, so far from believing that 
a man may choose what he calls " his Church," even as 
he may select his residence ; or from thinking that the 
visible Church is nothing more than a voluntary adhe- 
rence of separate and independent units into any eccle- 
siastical organization they choose : — we are convinced that 
as certainly as Christ revealed a system of Divine 
Truth, so certainly did He authorize personally and by 
His apostles, a positive institution through which that 
truth might be applied. To enter on this at full, is here 
out of the question ; but inasmuch as our Lord's allusion 
to a " kingdom" in his sermon to Nicodemus involves 
this ; and as the great controversy of the day turns 
on this very point, — we shall just intimate the heads of 
an argument, for a reply against those sectarian dispo- 
sitions which deny the social, in order to protect the 
individual life, of the Church. 



THE. ENGLISH CHURCH. 



33 



1. The SIGNS of God intending Humanity to exist 
under the mode of a spiritual constitution are not con- 
fined to Scripture ; but may be evidenced by the fact 
that every human being who comes into the world, 
enters it under the law of relationship; hence the 
family constitution is an eloquent symptom of God's in- 
tention that man should not exist for himself alone. In 
like manner, we may reason from the fact that national 
COMMUNIONS exist; which are also signs of some uni- 
versal and positive institutes, designed to limit the indul- 
gence of individuality ; and which institutes moreover do 
exist whether man wills it or not. 

2. A Church absolutely invisible on earth, would seem 
to be a mere creation of the intellect, which can have no 
objective reality in this coarse and actual world. Even 
the sect called the Quakers, — who more than any body 
have desired to live upon the idea of an internal or 
unseen Church, — have been compelled to use some visible 
tokens and outward signs wherewith to connect them- 
selves with the world and with one another. 

3. We demand where the visible Church, as essentially 
distinct from the invisible, is recognised hy the Bible? 
Indeed, so far as we have read the Scripture, we can 
only detect one Church of the living God from the 
BEGINNING, — " thc grouud aiid pillar of the truth." 
When Churches are spoken of in particular, the dis- 
tinction is geographical, and the plurality altogether a 
thing of local definition. 

4. Although it be manifest that, when we compare the 
magnificent privileges and mysterious endowments which 
Scripture attributes to the " Body of Christ," with its 
present characteristics, — we are appalled by the hideous 
and unholy contrasts which present themselves ; yet does 

c 



34 



THE IDEAL OF 



the same Scripture prepare us for this. A blended condi- 
tion of light and darkness ; of sin and holiness ; of chaff 
and wheat ; of branches which bear fruit and those which 
bear none ; of nets which hold good fish and bad ; — such 
is the description which our Lord himself gives of His 
gospel kingdom on earth, till the grand hour of final 
separation before His throne arrives. And we may ask, 
is not this sad inconsistency in the experience of the 
universal " Body," illustrated by a resembling experience 
as to every " member in particular ?" If the corporate 
LIFE of the Church be so lamentably deficient, is not the 
INDIVIDUAL LIFE of the belicvcr continually marred by 
a like defection from holiness and truth ? 

5. We have before endeavoured to prove, that if reli- 
gion only provided for man's welfare as a spiritual unit, 
it would be a defective system ; and altogether out of 
analogy with those relations which every human being 
bears to the settled constitution of a family and a nation. 
Indeed spiritual egotism would be all which such an 
isolation of religious principle would produce. A law of 
positive restraint to act upon our faculties from without, 
is just as requisite to the perfection of our nature as a 
spiritual principle to operate on our moral springs within. 

6. The whole doctrine of the Church, as laid down in 
the Bible, confirms this view of the Church as designed 
not to be only an unseen influence for the individual, 
but an embodied constitution, a visible framework, or 
sacramental Ark, for containing and preserving the 
truth. 

7. Both the religious wants and the very nature of 
man require something outward and visible, as well as 
the inward and invisible, in religion. And this is true, 
because, 1st, Body and soul were both brought under 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



35 



the curse by primal transgressions ; and therefore the 
spiritual corrective must be applied to both parts of 
our compounded being. And 2d, By a primitive law of 
our nature, every internal principle seeks to express itself 
by some outward development ; and by such external 
manifestation both strengthens itself and the religious 
constitution out of which it proceeds. Now with what 
consistency can it be maintained, that Christianity vio- 
lates the whole analogy of our human being in every 
other respect ? If the religious principle be truly inward 
as a LIFE, why should it not also be really outward in 
development l Hence rites, ceremonies, and sacra- 
mental emblems become requisites, in order to interpret 
through sensible media to others what must otherwise 
have been incarcerated in our own solitary bosoms. 

8. Analogical proofs that spiritual powers and agencies 
should operate upon humanity through external and by 
defined forms, which depend upon God's absolute 
WILL alone for their authority, — abound on all sides ; and 
wonderfully strengthen the argument for a visible 
Church, to be considered as an organized receptacle 
for those who receive Christ for their Lord. Thus, when 
we contemplate the mysterious kingdom of nature, we 
have no revelation of nude essences and abstract laws ; 
but what we call by the names of Gravitation, Attraction, 
Chemical Affinity, &;c., are the mere exponents of a 
hidden life, thus realized to man's observing senses. So 
also if we revert to God's empire of providential govern- 
ment, we behold all carried on through the palpable 
instrumentality of acts, persons, and events which, how- 
ever transient and slight they may outwardly appear, 
often produce influences on the spiritual destinies of 
mankind beyond human calculation to overtake. Let 

c 2 



36 



THE IDEAL OF 



not therefore Rationalism cavil at the exceeding glory of 
tlie Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ being 
associated with a form of communication so simple as 
bread and wine : — for how often have the revolution of 
kingdoms and the welfare of untold myriads depended 
on a look or tone, a passing word or single deed of a 
human being? 

9. In order to perpetuate religious Principles and 
sacred doctrines, it appears necessary to enclose them in 
the protective framework of palpable rites, ceremo- 
nies, and exterior symbols. In accordance with this 
requirement, God has ever communicated Himself to our 
nature chiefly by T6kens and Testimonies which were 
the coverings of His spiritual approach to the soul of 
man. Thus did He manifest himself in fiery visions, a 
" cloud of glory," kc, to the patriarchal and Mosaic 
worshippers of old. Hence we conclude that, the king- 
dom of Christ is not simply truth revealed and grace and 
gifts imparted : but that it also consists of a positive 
institution, wherein and whereby such truth, grace, and 
gifts are taught and conveyed. 

10. The spiritual and the visible are distinctions, but 
not opposites. The one may be intelligibly allied with 
the other ; even as the soul is not less real in the body, 
than when out of it. Those, therefore, who are afraid to 
admit the importance of the visible in religion, are as 
much mistaken in their philosophy as they are incom- 
plete in their Christianity. 

1 1 . Again : It is very remarkable that in the New 
Testament our corporate life of spiritual privilege in 
the Body of Christ, is far more the subject of apostolical 
counsel, exhortation, and warning, than the personal 
experience of the single believer. The " we," and the 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



37 



"us," are infinitely more frequent than tlie "I" and 
" THOU." Now a COMMUNION to be effective and per- 
manent must be organic ; and therefore some external 
institute is plainly implied, as a means for collecting the 
individual members into a generic whole. In other 
terms, a Visible Church must be constituted, if an 
external communion is to be maintained in this sensible 
world. 

12. Finally (and as we venture to think, incontestably)^ 
in Scripture again and again by analogies, metaphors, 
figures, parables, &c., God's elect in Christ are so de- 
scribed as to annul the idea that the mere faith of the indi- 
vidual is ALL which the dispensation of Christ is intended to 
produce. As a proof; consider that "the Church" is 
represented under the following illustrations : a " Bride;" 
the " King's Daughter ;" the " Beloved ;" a " Moun- 
tain ;" the " Lord's House, or Temple ;" the ^' Kingdom 
of Heaven ;" the " Body of Christ ;" the " Spouse ;" 
the " Lamb's Wife ;" the " Ground and Pillar of the 
Truth." Now if we attach any meaning at all to these 
phrases, it must be one which implies the soul's experi- 
mental union with Christ, and through Him a sympathetic 
communion of the Saints with each other. True, our 
blessed Lord says, " The kingdom of God is within 
you" (Luke xvii. 20, 21): but this assertion does not in 
the remotest degree interfere with the doctrine of a 
catholic body, public and palpable, to be seen and heard 
and understood of men. It simply intimates that the 
primary word of the Divine Spirit is " within" the circle 
of man's own invisible spirit : but when that spirit is thus 
quickened by the Sanctifier, the new principle of 
heavenly life in Christ will speedily embody itself in ex- 
terior operations, and thus become a member of the Church 



38 



THE IDEAL OF 



catholic and visible. In truth, an objection against s 
Positive Cliurcli from this text, vrould be equally fatal to 
all conjunction or outward fellowship for any religious 
purpose whatsoever. 

Thus then we humbly think, that our brethren who 
desire to subdue into silence their Rornanistic opponents, 
by making personal Life all and corporate Life nothing, 
cannot fortify their position either by the principles of 
Reason, the analogies of Providence, or the declarations 
of Scripture. Let them rather meet them on the scrip- 
tural ground which the Church of England takes ; whose 
doctrines both as to IxDiviDrALiTY and Catholicity, 
are in perfect harmony both with the teachings of the 
Bible, and the moral need of the human mind. She 
neither exaggerates, distorts, contracts, nor abbreviates 
one principle in religion, in order to enforce another : 
but, finding it the will of Christ that man's individual life 
should be maintained in coyjuxcTiox with his social life, 
she provides for both with maternal love, spiritual 
wisdom, and tender care. And would to God, instead 
of rending our Church by these unholy controversies, we 
could all say with affectionate reverence, oh ! my Mother 
Church, " If I forget thee let my right hand forget her 
cunning 1" 



THE EJS'GLISH CHURCH. 



39 



VI. 

ON THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH, AS TO THE CREED WHICH 
HER CATHOLIC MEMBERS MAINTAIN. 

1 . They hold that Christianity itself, so far as it is a reli- 
gion of positive requirements, is a means, and not an end. 
They cannot, therefore, mistake their Creed for a Christ, 
nor magnify their religion into their God. The end, 
therefore, of the sublime Economy revealed unto mankind 
in Christ, — they believe to be a fellowship with the 
Triune Jehovah for evermore; which commences in the 
operations of covenanted grace now, and will be consum- 
mated in the fruitions of endless glory hereafter. Hence 
with them, Christ is " All in All" in time, and through 
Him as Redeemer, and by His imparted Sanctifier, God 
may become their "All in All" in eternity. Hence 
Forms, Rites, and Sacraments are not with them believed 
in as absolute and final, but relative and instrumental. 
Formalism, therefore, in principle is as much opposed to 
their views, as heresy in doctrine. 

2. But while true Catholics believe that Means are 
never to be falsely glorified into Ends, they are equally 
convinced that it is a wicked presumption on the part of 
man to aim at the End without the Means. Hence 
again forms in religion are not by them considered merely 
as contingent appendices, or local modifications ; nor as 
venerable Relics of the ancient Church, to be regarded 
with the traditional enthusiasm by Priests and Church- 
men; but rather as instruments of a positive connexion 
between God and man ; or as attesting symbols which 
outwardly shadow forth inward truths ; or as sacra- 
mental conveyancers of Christ's free grace to His 



40 



THE IDEAL OP 



Body the Church. Holding therefore these views of 
Forms, — they cannot sympathize with those who arrogate 
to themselves the right to reject formal institutes which 
Christ or His Apostles have ordained ; any more than 
they can approve of others who wish to modify doctrines 
which Christ and His Apostles have also revealed. 

3. The Catholic Churchmen believe that in England 
we have a true Branch of Christ's holy and Apos- 
tolical Church, which Church is one ; though partly 
visible in one sense, and partly invisible in another. 
Moreover, they believe that of this Church Jesus Christ, 
and He only, is the Invisible, Universal, and Ever- 
lasting Head. And thus, if contemplated under the 
aspect of a Kingdom, they consider this Kingdom to be 
founded on the Incarnation of the Son of God; whereby 
a union hath been established between God reconciled 
and man redeemed, through the life, sufferings, and death 
of Jesus. Thus the Church is rooted and grounded in 
Christ : and by a living communion with Him, both in 
a corporate or individual capacity, — our Humanity attains 
its consummation of bliss now, and its glory hereafter. 

4. They believe that as this kingdom of Christ was 
designed to be universal, spiritual, and yet visible, — so 
hath Christ not committed it to the invention of human 
wisdom ; nor to the protection of human feelings ; but 
that He ordered, endowed, and appointed it in all 
things requisite unto "decency," dignity, and permanence. 

5. For the government of this kingdom, or Church 
Catholic, they resort to Christ's will as developed in His 
Word, expounded by his apostles, and carried out and 
continued on from their day unto the present hour : — 
during the whole of , which period Christ has never been 
without a witnessing body for Himself, on earth. 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



41 



6. Catholic Churchmen believe that the Church of 
England hath been in possession from the earliest ages of 
certain signs and symbols which exhibit the infallible 
proofs of her truly and apostolically forming a part of 
the Redeemer's Spiritual Constitution. Among these 
they consider the following ; — a Creed, the Sacraments, 
Offices, Liturgies, and Orders. And moreover they de- 
light in the glorious fact, that amid all the mutations of 
time, the revolutions of kingdoms, and the passing away 
of earthly systems and schemes, — our apostolical 
Church hath stood firm and fast to the " faith once de- 
livered unto the saints." The presence of her Great 
Head hath been with her : and her clergy at this day 
can trace their ministerial commission, not to historical 
contingencies ; nor political convulsions ; nor to the expe- 
diencies of State-craft ; nor to the social inventions of 
any age or country ; — but by a transmitted line upwardly 
and unbrokenly to an apostolical origin; and which origin 
itself is ultimately resolved into the commission of Christ 
FROM THE Father. " Go ye forth," &;c. AS my Father 
sent me, SO I send you. 

7. They believe that the Reformation, in the majesty 
and purity of its great principle, was from God : and 
that our glorious Reformers were human instruments in 
His hands for efi'ectuating the mighty deliverance of our 
Church from the thraldom of Romish assumption, idolatry, 
and superstition. Thus, they are a protesting body of 
Catholic believers : that is, men who because they are 
Catholics, cannot be Romanists. The so-called head- 
ship of the Pope they are convinced is nothing less than 
a Satanic caricature, set up by pride and ambition 
against the sacerdotal and regal offices of the Lord Jesus, 
In their valiant protest against this horrible intrusion of 



42 



THE IDEAL OF 



a sinful creature between Nations and Christ as their 
Head alone ; between individual souls and Christ as 
also their oi^ly Lord ; in this they admire and reverence 
the mission to which the martyrs and leaders of the 
Anglican Reformation were called. Meanwhile, they 
are perfectly aware that many faults, inconsistencies, and 
errors accompanied this grand deliverance : but from the 
very nature of the case it could hardly have been pre- 
vented, but that the distinct personalities of nations 
and men, rather than the corporate privileges and 
duties of the Church, — must have exclusively employed 
and engrossed the minds of the Reformers. 

8. But while the. Catholic party abhor Rome, they 
heartily and honestly reject Geneva : as superstitions and 
idolatries are to be detested in the one case, — so sectarian 
egotism and schismatical novelties are to be avoided in 
the other. The catholic believer must have an embodied 
Church as well as an abstract creed ; and hence he is 
persuaded, that as the communication of grace to a sinner 
is altogether a free act of royal will on the part of Christ, 
— so must the mode and the method, by which and through 
which such grace comes, be left entirely and implicitly in 
the hands of our blessed Redeemer. Under this solemn 
impression, true Churchmen further believe that it is 
DISHONOURABLE TO Christ to imagine that He intended 
a MINISTRY, but left no rules for the selection and com- 
mission of ministers ; and instituted Sacraments, but 
made no provision for their dispensers ! Hence it ap- 
pears unto them that the Church of Christ (functionally 
viewed) is not chosen by man, but constituted for him, 
by the Redeemer; and that instead of being a mere 
Spiritual Club where each contributes his sum, and 
enters according to his own arbitrary taste or will, it is a 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 



43 



SUBLIME ORGANIZATION founded upon the positive decrees^ 
of Christ, and built upon the apostles and their succes- 
sors in the ministry. Between the Catholics therefore 
and Sectarians there is an inomense gulf, not to be 
bridged over except by spurious charity and blind indif- 
ference to the law of the Redeemer. 

9. So far from thinking that, to view Christianity as 
applied to man not only as an isolated person, but 
socially as a member in a body, is to encourage for- 
malism, they rather conclude that thereby Christ is espe- 
cially magnified. For as long as religion is confined to 
the frames, feelings, and experience of an individual, 
there is danger of egotism, self-indulgence, and self- 
righteousness. But when faith beholds the " body of 
Christ," and each man as a member related thereby to 
the whole, and in that whole enjoying a communion-life, 
the heart expands into a largeness which is heavenly and 
divine. Above all, this realization of Christ and Christ 
alone, as the actuating Life and ruling Head not only of 
doctrines, but of institutes and forms in the Church, 
tends to empty the creature of all merit, and to ascribe 
everything holy, spiritual, and real, unto the Lord. The 
Word preached ; the Sacrament dispensed ; the prayer 
offered ; the chapter read, and the praise ascribed — oh ! 
the genuine Churchman in each and all can say. He is 
the Alpha of all their validity, and the Omega of all 
their effect. 

10, and Lastly. In their positive aspect the Catholic 
party believe that all the yearnings of the age ; all the 
restlessness of exacting intellect ; the aspirations of society 
for fellowships on a broader basis, and the cry for educa- 
tion, enlightenment, liberty, and peace, are to be met 

BY THAT SPIRITUAL PROVISION FOR HUMANITY WHICH 



44 



THE IDEAL OF 



Christ hath treasured up in His Church. Tims, 
too, while they dread Dissenterism, they can perceive 
that in every form of self-will which the manifold secta- 
rianism of the heart exhibits, there are distorted truths, 
mangled doctrines, and mutilated principles at work, 
which are capable of finding a true explanation and 
deliverance in that spiritual constitution which the 
Kingdom of Christ exhibits. In fact, they believe in the 
Church and in the Church alone, the harmony, unity, 
and co-existence of all those separate ideas and clashing 
systems which sectarianism loves and invents, are to he 
realized. This Creed therefore engenders no harsh 
bigotry, hatred, or intolerance, in the minds of those who 
hold it ; but whether they cry " Glory to God in the 
highest," or " Good-will to man," they are convinced 
both the glory and the good-will are best promoted by 
those who live, feel, and act, under the controlling power 
of these words, " I believe in the holy catholic 
Church." 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



45 



VII. 

ON THE IDEAL OF THE CHURCH IN REGARD TO HER 
EXISTING RELATIONS. 

Finally, let us consecrate a few pages to the Church 
of England, in regard to the extent of her existing rela- 
tions. And here it is mere supererogation to observe, 
that within the narrow bounds of some brief pages we can 
enclose but few of those presiding truths which, under 
other circumstances, might be prominently developed and 
applied. All that we shall presume to attempt, is to 
throw a few glimmering remarks on the relationship 
which our venerable Establishment is now exhibiting to- 
wards the political, social, intellectual, and spiritual state 
of the empire. 

In the outset, then, we may observe, that if the Church 
of England be indeed a true branch of Christ's holy and 
apostolic Church, then by her very spiritual constitution, 
she must emanate both directly and indirectly through- 
out the heart of the nation, a corrective influence and 
transforming efficacy, which, though the filmed eyes of 
political utilitarians may choose not to see, — are never- 
theless deep, subtle, pervading, and in many ways spi- 
ritually and morally victorious over all the opposing 
elements of corruption with which they come in contact. 
For, experimentally defined, what is Christianity but 
" the salt of the earth,'' and " the light of the world;' and in 
proportion as the Church of England retains the one in 
its full savour, and the other in effective clearness, her 
Divine privilege is to act, under God, chiefly in the way 
of CONTRAST AND CORRECTION to the Christlcss world 
around. As the salt, her office is to preserve mankind 



46 



THE IDEAL OF 



from spiritual death and moral putrefaction ; and as the 
LIGHT, her duty is, to irradiate and dissolve the clouds of 
unbelieving darkness that sin has gathered round the 
soul, in reference to God's character and its own condi- 
tion. Here it is that the Church of Christ is realized in 
that lofty position to which she was predestinated from 
everlasting ; she miniatures the living character of the 
Redeemer on earth, by " doin(/ good " both to the bodies 
and souls of men ; and therefore to quench her saving- 
principles, would be virtually to bury mankind in the 
blackness of a moral eclipse, and in the blight of moral 
death. 

In reference theti to the energizing contrast which our 
Church must ever exhibit under all the complexional 
varieties of popular error and religion, need we hesitate 
to affirm that she is at this moment nobly authenticating 
her claims to be Instructress of the empire, by oppos- 
ing mildly, majestically, and consistently, the great 

HERESY OF OUR NATION SELF-WILL 1 Let US traCO tllO 

evolution of this, under the fourfold division which we 
have already suggested. 

And first, we have self-will in politics, producing trea- 
son to authority. We use the word treason advisedly, 
for under every varied shape, whether of Radicalism, 
Chartism, or Socialism, treason to all coercive law is at 
the root of this evil manifestation. Now, in what way 
does the Church counteract this political enormity ? 
Why, by embodying in all her forms, and implicating in 
all her doctrines the following truth, viz. — That in refer- 
ence to government, the principle of God is sovereignty, 
the means submission, and the result order ; but that the 
principle of the Devil is equality, the means rebellion, 
and the result disorder. Assuredly, the suicidal axiom, 



THE ENGLISH CHrRCH. 



47 



that " the people (i. e. the SELF-willing masses,) are the 
source of power," enjoys no shielding authority either 
from the Articles, Services, or Formulas of the Church of 
England. With her, sovereignty and magistracy are 
God-sanctioned and God-derived. " By me kings reign, 
and princes decree justice." "The powers that be are 
ordained of God." " Honour the king ;" " Obey them 
that have the rule over you ;" " I exhort that, first of all, 
supplications, &c. &c., be made for kings, and /or all that 
are in authority!' These are the maxims and principles 
which pervade the whole service and spirit of the Church 
of England. Like golden ligatures of truth, they bind 
the throne of human majesty on earth to the Throne of 
divine supremacy in heaven. Truths like these consti- 
tute the doctrinal inheritance, as well as the political 
glory of her people : and evil indeed will that day be, 
when, forsaking the foundation of Divine will as the 
basis of government and source of power, the Church 
should either attempt to teach, or the nation at large be 
willing to be taught, — that government sprung from a 
compromise of the individual will with general expe- 
diency ; and that instead of an express sanction for 
sovereignty from God himself, a convenient phantasm, 
called in the vocabulary of political speculation, " social 
compact'' — is the true ground and reason on which our 
civil authority may be said to repose. Let us devoutly 
thank God, that as long as the Church of England shall 
echo the Divine assertion, that " whatsoever things were 
written aforetime, were written for our learning!' — she 
will never require the light of mere human argument 
wherewith to thread her way through the labyrinthine 
darkness of political sophistry. It is her sublime and in- 
alienable privilege both to possess, and to consult at the 



48 



THE IDEAL OF 



Shrine of infallible reason itself, and tlience to deliver 
the true principles of polity as well as faith to her 
children : — the Bible is in the midst of her (that intellec- 
tual Shekinah where the Supreme Intellect is enthroned) 
— and she will never authorize the blind doctrine of 
social parity in man, as long as her oracle of truth de- 
clares human subordination to be the revealed principle 
of God. 

In passing from this subject, we may take the liberty 
to add, that much of the sinful confusion that covers the 
national mind on the subject of sovereignty and subjec- 
tion, may be traced to the popularity of that destructive 
falsehood, — viz., That politics and religion are entirely 
unconnected. Now what is this but political atheism? 
Surely if the attributes of the Creator and the resj)onsi- 
bilities of a rational creature are at all related to each 
other in the way of command and obedience, there can be 
no region of moral conduct in which this relationship 
may develope itself, or over which our faculties can ex- 
patiate,-— where Divine control on the one hand, and 
human subjection on the other, are not to be distinctly, 
reverently, and uniformly acknowledged. So far from 
admitting the principle that politics and religion are se- 
parate and separable things, the Bible, and the Church 
of England, as instructing us by and through its pages, 
everywhere teaches us that God must be in politics, as in 
all other principles of conduct; or else, those politics 
must be virtually atheism in public men and measures ; 
and if carried up to their native climax, tend to unthrone 
the Almighty as the God of nations, before the bar of 
whose will the character of man, under every form of 
evolution, is to stand and be judged. True, our Lord has 
illustrated the distinct actings of our obedience by his de- 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



49 



cision. Render therefore unto Cmar the things which are 
Ccesars, and unto God the things that are God's;' but it 
yet remains to be proved, that he has any where implied 
that God is not the God of Csesar and his things also ! 
So that in all cases in which a king exerts authority, or a 
subject pays obedience, a Divine principle must never 
cease to control the one, or to actuate the other. 

Let us now regard the Church of England as respects 
her relation to the social state of the empire : and may we 
not at once assert with a grateful largeness of expression, 
that she is the spiritual Centre, from whence our domestic 
morals pre-eminently derive their sacred force and beauti- 
ful expansion ? Circulating, as she does by her varied 
ministrations, a rich life-blood of celestial influence 
through the vast framework of the social body, — who 
shall duly estimate the pervading energy with which she 
purifies the hearts and households of the land ? Consider 
for instance^ that when on every Sabbath-day she opens 
in the Gospel the gates of mercy to mankind, and causes 
the freshness and the fragrance of eternity to breathe 
over the deadness and dryness of our sin-fevered world, 
• — how much of all that constitutes the moral heaven of 
the coming week — how much of all that is chaste in love, 
refined in thought, exalted in idea, and benevolent in 
action, — might be traced up to the truths she expounds, to 
the ordinances she administers, and to the motives which 
she is authorized to supply ? Around her as the sun of 
our social system, the graces of private life may be said 
to shine and act ; while from her they derive the evan- 
gelic beauty of their expression, and the philanthropic 
form of their development. How many crushed hearts 
does her soothing voice revive ! How many chilled and 
desolated natures does she warm and cheer ! How many 



50 



THE IDEAL OF 



dark, doubting, and depraved spirits does she enlighten, 
convince, and restore ! And on the bosom of Jesus how 
many a throbbing head has she pillowed in peace ! And 
consider, too, how finely adapted is her ritual to that 
varied round of experiences, which are commensurate 
with the circles of social life. Whether present at the 
bridal altar, to hallow the bonds of human affection with 
the principles of Divine purity ; or placing in the bap- 
tismal embrace of the child-loving Redeemer, new-born 
infancy ; or hovering with all the watching eyes of a 
spiritual mother beside the solemnities of a dying bed ; 
or chanting over the cherished dust of some departed 
saint the august Tequiem of immortality : in a word, 
whether you contemplate social life at the height of 
action, or in the depth of affliction, — may we not pour 
forth a national hymn of gratitude to the Most PIigh 
for the influence, the character, and the principles of 
the Church of England ? Surely he that toucheth Her 
toucheth the apple of the Nation's eye ! 

The third aspect under which the benign agency of our 
Establishment discovers itself shall now be considered, 
viz., as controlling and chastening the intellectual 
STATE of the empire. And here, as before, we are pro- 
foundly mistaken if we do not find Her attitude, as the 
endowed teacher of revealed truth, and the commissioned 
proclaimer of divine mysteries, — to be at once dignified, 
noble, and uncompromising; and thus confronting with 
mild but majestic antagonism, certain states of national 
mind, modes of popular feeling, and manifestations of 
public delusion, which, if allowed to operate unchastened 
and uncoerced,— will terminate in the destruction of the 
real intellectual grandeur and moral sanity of the empire. 
Let us indulge in a little detail. 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH, 51 

On casting our regards on the signs of the times, we 
are struck with the fact, that the expansive culture of the 
intellectual powers in the leading systems of the day, is 
heralded as the climax of national attainment, without 
the slightest reverence for the growth of moral feelings. 
Intellect is now the popular god, around whose 
altar the discoveries of science and the flatteries of philo- 
sophy are concentrated and combined. The disastrous 
consequences of all this would require volumes to unfold. 
Let it suffice to say, that according to the revealed mind 
of God, man is a fallen being ; that is, human nature is 
utterly, absolutely, and helplessly corrupt ; and more- 
over, that much of this dreadful malady is rooted in the 
haughtiness of the intellect. This being the case, man 
can no more regenerate his own nature than he can 
magnify himself into the Almighty; whatever comes fi^om 
man will partake of man. He is darkness, and cannot 
produce light ; weakness, and cannot produce strength ; 
corruption, and cannot produce purity. If restored at 
all therefore, the influence that will be adequate to the 
achievement must be above and beyond that nature with 
which it is to contend ; in other words, it must be super- 
'natural and divine. And if moreover we add to this, 
that the will is so distinct from the intellect, that no 
cultivation of the last, however exquisite and refined, 
can really of itself overcome the perversity of the first,-- 
we cannot resist the conviction, that attained knowledge, 
apart from sacred principle, will serve only to deepen the 
mxOral gulf which exists between the Divine character and 
the human condition. Unfallen nature might be culti- 
vated into an approximation with Deity, on its own 
principles, because they would be in harmonious analogy 
with the principles of God ; but fallen nature can onlj 

D 2 



52 



THE IDEAL OF 



approacli that blessed communion by a remedial process, 
tliat shall at every application of its alterative energy 
absorb the proud self-will of the creature in the absolute 
sovereignty of the Creator, until it be finally restored to 
its primeval image. Hence the grand especiality of the 
gospel is this : it drains out the self-righteousness and 
the self-confidence of human nature, that the righteous- 
ness and strength of the Divine may freely and fully be 
poured into its place. Thus the doctrines of grace pre= 
sent a humbling process to the native pride, powers, and 
principles of man. Either reason is transcended ; or 
imagination checked ; or curiosity tamed ; or the will 
crossed, the afiectidns subdued, and passions denied ; — in 
other words, the " old man" is morally crucified on the 
cross of truth, that the " new man" may be produced by 
the creative energy of grace in his stead. 

How closely these views apply to the Socinian arro- 
gance of our day, and to that educational heresy which 
now so mournfully deludes even those who profess to 
" walk by faith, and not by sight," needs no argument 
to show. But this we venture to assert, that if at the 
period of the Reformation sacred truth was concealed 
under clouds of Papal darkness and polluting supersti- 
tion — the danger now is, that we shall be so dazzled by 
the intellectual glare of our own attainments, as to have 
no eyesight sufficiently meek and purified to behold the 
solemn lustre and loveliness of divine 'realities. We are 
more endangered by our light than our darkness ; and in 
the blaze of scientific discovery have need to fear ear- 
nestly, that we do not mistake a philosophic admiration 
of God's WORK for a spiritual imitation of His will. By 
contemplating the first we may indeed admire His Attri- 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



53 



bates, but it is only by practising the second that we can 
adore his Personality. 

And this brings us to a few remarks on the passion for 
physical science which now infects the entire frame of our 
popular literature. Matter is more cultivated than mind; 
and a spirit of subtle Materialism directly or indirectly 
wields a palsying influence over the free movements of 
all that is high, holy, and ethereal in our being. Above 
all, the facts of creation are beginning to be lifted into a 
rivalship with the principles of revelation, as though ex- 
hibiting a counterpart view of Godhead ; so that if we 
adopt the fashionable creed of certain philosophers, the 
earth itself is a species of responsive Scripture, out of 
whose syllables of matter science may spell the complete 
name and nature of the Invisible God ! Now, in opposi- 
tion to all this, let us observe that the character of 
God never was, and never can be, interpreted on the 
mere principles of natural philosophy. For notwith- 
standing the boasted march of physical science into the 
secrets of material creation, and the constitution of man, 
— we are as far off as ever from a practical knowledge of the 
Divine ivill and purposes , if we exclude revelation. The 
truth is, natural science has lighted its torch at the sun 
of revelation, and then waved it over the heads of man- 
kind, in the boastful attitude of a light self-discovered. 
Or, we may otherwise assert, that philosophy has plun- 
dered the Bible of its costly principles, and thus attempted 
to demonstrate the adequacy of reason, to the overthrow 
of spiritual averments in the Bible. But after all, what 
is the amount of fair conclusion, drawn from " the things 
that are seenf Why, that man is encircled with one 
huge MYSTERY OF MYSTERiALisM, without a siuglc gleam 



54 



THE IDEAL OF 



of moral explanation to illuminate the T^-hole ! If God 
(as pliilosopliic sentiment exclaims) be simply merciful 
and wise, wliv this disorder and death I How can the 
philosopher reason his way bv loo'ical assent, from an 
imperfect and polluted creation, to the all-perfect and 
all-holy God ? The utmost (^we sav it with profound 
respect^ that mere science can achiere for him. is to leaye 
his mind in a state of vibration between two wonders; — 
that, on the one hand, of those crowding glories and 
harmonies which combine their fascinations on all sides 
and that, on the other, of those disorders and disasters 
that perpetually interrupt the scene, and mar the sym- 
metry and benevolence of the whole. Here is mystery : 
before it philosophy is either mute, or babbles like an 
infant in its dream. But what says the Bible ? Cursed 
is the ground for thy sake.''" The earnest expectcdion cf 
the creature ycreation) icaiteth for the rnardfestathm of the 
sons of God,, for the creature icas made suhject to vanity not 
iciUinghj . . . — '^^^^f gIso shall he delivered from th.e hond- 
age of corruption into the glorious lihertg of the children of 
God, for we knoic t/cat the whole creation groaneth and 
ti-availeth in -pain until now.'' In this passage we have a 
profound inference, which science could never have 
educed ; viz. — that the disorders of the natural world are 
to he interpreted by the disorders of the rational. In the 
existence of the last, there is a penal foundation for the 
first : in a word, the moral corruption of the world within 
and the physical corruption of the world without, when 
placed in the light of Scripture, are seen to be the inter- 
preting counterparts of each other. 

But enough of this : and now it may be asked, in what 
wav do the doctrinal energies of our Church tend to 
counteract and chasten down this idolatry for unsacctified 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



55 



intellect, and this vehement cultivation of physical 
science ? We answer simply, — by setting a personal 
God in mystery and in mercy in all her prayers, praises, 
ordinances, and sacraments, continually before the mental 
eyes and capacities of her people. We say personal 
God ; because it is with God in His living, acting, 
and controlling Personality, and not with mere attri- 
butes, or divine abstractions, that religion is conversant. 
In the world, all is earthly, sensual, temporal ; in the 
Church, on the contrary, all is heavenly, spiritual, and 
eternal : man and his Maker are brought face to face ; 
and instead of the exciting, feverish, and ever-changing 
novelties of material science, the mind converses with the 
venerable secrets and the solemn verities of a spiritual 
world to come. Above all, the Church of England pre- 
serves the intellect unflattered, by holding her mysteries 
unexplained. While paying due homage to the reason 
of man as a glorious faculty, she never trusts the pre- 
sumption of its feeble acts. The presiding character of 
her formularies seems to be, — first, an authoritative 
announcement of the truth, claiming the submission ever, 
but the sacrifice never, of the human intellect : secondly, 
a scriptural fulness of doctrine : thirdly, a comprehensive 
grasp of application to the exigencies of the heart, and to 
the experiences of the soul : and fourthly, a spirit of 
candour and charity to all : — in short, at one time ex- 
hibiting heights of intellectual majesty vvhich the mind of 
an archangel might delight to mount, — and at another, 
affording simplicities of statement which the tiny facul- 
ties of an infant may embrace. Thus under Divine mercy 
and guidance, she co-works with the central design of 
the Bible, in humbling the pride of our intellect, and sub- 
duing the perversity of our will. And how significant 



56 



THE IDEAL OF 



is this momentous truth, — that as the rejection of mystery 
out of Christ was the fall of man unto death, so the 
reception of mystery in Christ must be his rise again 
unto life ! 

To this view of the Church of England, in connexion 
with her tranquillizing influence on the intellectual fever 
of our day, — much might be added also as to her wise 
provision against the imposture of excitement, the perils 
of expediency, and the power of opinion which are now 
diseasing the moral health of millions around us. But 
our space will only permit us to occupy a page or two on 
the bearings of our Church towards the nation at large, 
considered as her spiritual diocese. 

What then is the general expression of the National 
Mind at present, considered as an index to its tempera- 
ment in spiritual things ? And here it would resemble a 
heathenish gratitude towards the Almighty Inspirer of 
whatsoever is divine in the motive, and exalted in the 
actions of man, — to deny that there is a spirit of prac- 
tieal benevolence distinguishing a large portion of professing 
members of our Church, which cannot be too highly com- 
mended. Their religion is not the monastic ideal of the 
mere contemplatist, residing coldly apart from the warm 
stir and homely life of men and things around them : but 
on the contrary, it is social in its very essence, and realizes 
its origin from the heart of God, by its catholic sympathy 
with the heart of man. Aware of that tremendous change 
which the increase of population will speedily introduce 
into the habits and principles of the people, and deeply 
impressed with the truth also, that in consequence of the 
extension of the elective franchise, the middle classes 
must virtually become the political mastei's of the empire, 
— we delight to recognise the heroic activity of thousands, 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



57 



who are preparing to meet this crisis of national character 
on the sound principles of Christianity and Churchman- 
ship. Hence societies for relieving the temporal distress, 
and for dispersing the spiritual darkness in which some 
millions of our countrymen are wasting and withering 
away,— -are multiplying around with magnificent increase. 
For this revival of Christian energy, this noble combina- 
tion of doctrines of love with deeds of mercy,— -our 
gratitude cannot be too intensely felt, or too fervidly ex- 
pressed. Above all, the fine glow of missionary zeal 
which is beginning to diffuse itself over the whole body 
of our Church with somewhat of its apostolical purity, 
together with a deepening consciousness of those para- 
mount claims which the Colonies have on our spiritual 
compassion, — these, and other cheering signs and com- 
forting manifestations, must not remain unthanked or 
unregarded. 

But, granting all this to be no enthusiast's dream, but 
simply reality, we cannot disguise from ourselves, that in 
the main, the spirit of our day is utterly uncongenial 
with the humbling character and coercive power of those 
truths, for the teaching and impressing of which the 
Church of Christ has been constituted by God. To say 
nothing of those revolting forms and infernal shapes in 
which infidelity is daily revealing itself, — we have only 
to enumerate a few of the deteriorating influences at pre- 
sent in national prominence and power, to perceive at 
once that the sacred warfare of the Church of England is 
neither vague nor superficial. The intense passion for 
accumulation, under the spell of which money and the 
market become practically "the all in all" of popular 
sway and reference the distracting variety of pursuits, 

* While mechanic arts, manufactures, agriculture, commerce, and 



58 



THE IDEAL OF 



through which, as by so many moral valves, the steaming 
excitement of public restlessness continues to escape; 
the grovelling sacrifice of what is lofty in principle to the 
low venalties of expediency ; the feverish love of external 
result in religion, science, and literature, instead of in- 
ternal influence ; a sickly homage paid to reigning opinion, 
however adverse that opinion may be to the Divine glory 
or human warfare ; a profane trust in the powers of un- 
converted nature, — as if there yet lurked in the secrecies 
of our constitution certain elements of perfectability^ 
which will enable victorious philosophy to triumph over 
the fallen nature of man : above all, the fatal blunder of 
thinking that the real elevation of the expanded intellect 
can be carried on by any other process than through the 
purifying transformation of the moral powers;^ — these 

all those products of knowledge which are confined to gross, definite 
and tangible objects, have, with the aid of experimental philosophy, 
been every day puttmg on more brilliant colours, the splendour of the 
imagination has been fading ; sensibility, which was formerly a gene- 
rous nursling of rude nature, has been chased from its ancient range 
in the wide dominion of patriotism and religion with the weapons of 
derision, by a shadow calling it good sense ; and calculations of pre- 
sumptuous expediency, groping their way among partial and temporary 
consequences, have been substituted for the dictates of paramount and 
infallible conscience, the supreme embracer of consequences; lifeless 
and circumspect decencies have banished the graceful negligence and 
unsuspicious dignity of virtue. — Wordsworth on the Relations of Great 
Britain, ^'C. Src, p. 164. 

* There are mysteries relative to the connexion between the moral 
and intellectual frame of man, which our faculties in their present 
fallen and deluded state are unequal to unfold. But notwithstanding 
this, all men, more or less, actually realize the connexion. There is a 
circular action between the state of the will and the conduct of the 
intellect continually experienced ; while in reference to the force of 
the affections, how often does the deforming power of passion trans- 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



59 



and other influences might be adduced as counteracting 
the mild agency of scriptural truth, and wielding a per- 
petual hostility against the moral aggression of our 
Church, in her endeavours to season the world with the 
salt of divine principle, and to preserve the souls of her 
children from doctrinal putrefaction and spiritual death. 

Against all these varied elements then of existing 
enmity (combined in their action, though clashing in their 
principles), is there aught in the ruling doctrines and 
ritual apparatus of the Church of England, calculated to 
make head ? Under God, we believe there is : and in 
her, we venture to assert, amid the rising waves of revo- 
lution and the tossing sea of popular discontent, the peace, 

mute the Deity into a moral similitude to itself, and thus tempt the 
dreaming heretic to bask his voluptuous life away under the approving 
smile of an imagined Jehovah ! Various are the passages in Scripture 
which contain the seeds of the finest and most elTective arguments 
which may be brought against the profane tendency of our times, to 
make the expansion of the mental faculties, rather than the purification 
of the moral feelings, the great object of national ambition. Among 
others, let the following two be reverently considered, and we will 
dare to assert that they establish a principle firm as the divine attri- 
butes themselves, viz., that the loftiest expansion of mind can never he 
attained loithout a corresponding purification of the heart. 

" The Jews marvelled (being worshippers of mere knowledge), 
saying, how knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Jesus 
answered them and said, my doctrine is not mine (^. e., humanly 
excogitated, as you dream), but his that sent me. If any will (wills) 
TO DO HIS WILL, he shall know or the doctrine, whether it be of 
God, or whether I speak of myself." (John vii. 15, 16, 17.) Again, 
in a passage equally profound and sublime, we read, " Lord, how is it 
that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 
Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he will keep 
MY words ; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto 
him, and make our abode with him." (John xiv. 22, 23.) 



60 



THE IDEAL OF 



happiness, and glory of the emph-e can alone be safely 
arked. To illustrate this would require a volume : yet 
may the whole be concentrated in this one inviolable fact, 

THE SAVING PRINCIPLES OF OUR ChURCH ARE IN 

ABSOLUTE HARMONY WITH THE REVEALED PROMISES OF 
HEAVEN ; AND THE MORE THE NATION IS TAUGHT TO 
EMBODY THE PURITY OF THE ONE IN HER CHARACTER, 
THE MORE SHE WILL REALIZE THE BLESSING OF THE 

OTHER IN HER WELFARE. For demonstrated it may be 
with the precision of mathematical proof, that rigliteous- 
ness exaltetli a nation, hut sin is a reproach to any people." 
True, in the eje of our Church no relation which man 
bears to this world is forgot ; but it is pre-eminently over 
the destinies of his eternal consciousness that she bends 
her watchful and unwearied gaze. In order to disci]3line 
the infant of time for its manhood in eternity, she per- 
petually brings before the responsible soul its ever-awful 
relationship to Godhead, in the Triune aspect of Creator, 
Redeemer, and Judge : and in all the detail of that 
supernatural hidden life which religion inculcates, there 
is a celestial provision for counteracting the infection of 
that lower form of visible and worldly life, which our 
blended experience must continually face. Heavenly 
and holy indeed must that Church be, that unteaches 
human pride before she teaches Divine knowledge — that 
everywhere subordinates the intellectual to the moral, the 
temporal to the eternal — and in contrast with the baseness 
of expediency, and the vagaries of opinion, authenticates 
SACRED PRINCIPLE as the Only standard of what is right, 
and the Word of God as the only test of what is true. 
Above all, while by her Litany our venerated Church in- 
terprets the national conscience in reference to sin felt and 
salvation needed,— what irradiations of joy does she at» 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



61 



tract from the Sanctuary of peace above^ wherewith to 
illumine this blighted world of darkness, graves, and 
tears ! Mindful that the begun heaven of the spirit con- 
sists in that moral reflection of our Maker which holiness 
begets within,— she ever sets before the eyes of her people 
the promotion of the Divine glory as the great purpose 
of their lives, and the exhibition of Divine love as the 
great motive of their hearts : and teaches them that not 
in wealth acquired, not in rank enjoyed, not in the palms 
of intellect, not in the pursuits of science, but that in 
spiritual reconciliation with God in the conscience, — the 
perfective grandeur and ennobling happiness of our 
nature can be found. Profoundly indeed does she show 
the way to be happy, by affording the means how to be- 
come holy. And if it can be proved that universal 
TRUTH is the object of the intellect, and universal good 
the object of the will,— what is the Church of England in 
her doctrinal voice but the spiritual echo of this almighty 
text— "Christ is All and in All?" 

And yet though Christ be now " All in All," there 
ivill come a period in the history of the Church glorified, when 
" God shall he All in All'' What we intend by this pros- 
pect of man's predestinated glory, will appear from the 
following passage in the fifteenth chapter of the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians. " And when all things shall 
be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also himself he 
subject unto him, that put all things under Him," that 
" God may be all in All." In Colossians we read, 
" Christ is all in All ;" but the distinctive language in 
these parallel texts relates to the difference of time, to 
which each belongs. In the Colossians the Apostle 
alludes to all connected with the mediatorial empire over 
which Christ as meritorious God-man reigns ; but in the 



62 



THE IDEAL OF 



Corinthians he carries the mind to a period beyond this, 
when the designs of mediation being accomplished, the 
entire system of mediation shall terminate, and thus God 
Himself be an immediate "All in All." This is indeed 
a contemplation almost too sublime for our feeble minds 
to endure. The dominion of the Mediator commenced 
with the entrance of sin into our nature, and it appears 
that when that sin, both in principle and in fact has 
been expelled, — then with the conclusion of its power, 
shall also end the mediatorial reign of Christ. Hence- 
forth no religion will be required ; no sacraments needed ; 
no veiling ceremonies and intervening rites will come be- 
tween the consciousness of the glorified Spirits and the 
Godhead whom they are to adore. But, whether or no, 
Christ will continue to be a Manifester of God to all 
fiuite Intelligence throughout eternity, although not a 
Mediator between them, — is a matter on which it be- 
comes us to speak with cautious reverence. In the 
opinions of some divines, though Christ will hereafter 
resign His throne as a Mediatorial King, he must ever 
constitute the Grand Medium whereby the Invisible 
Jehovah will disclose and display His essential glories 
and attributes, both unto angels and unto men. Mean- 
while, if we confine ourselves to the literal expression, 
" God shall be All in All," — do not the words imply 
that in some ineffable way the souls of the beatified shall 
worship in the living sanctuary of the Divine Being 
Himself, since God is to be All in All? Wondrous pro- 
mise ! which intimates that every saved human spirit shall 
be instinct with divinity, and " alV which our actuated soul 
is, thinks, feels, or loills, appear like a mysterious pulsation 
of the One Infinite Mind who throbs with simultaneous 
expression "in AIL" A truth of kindred magnificence 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 



63 



is conveyed also by what is said in the Revelations, con- 
cerning "the Lord God Almighty" being a " Temple.'' 
Does not this mean that within the awful shrine of His 
encompassing Attributes, the Church of the Redeemed is 
destined to worship and wonder, and thus feel her con- 
scious eternity to be nothing less than prediction fulfilled, 
— " God is All in All ?" 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE ON THE ROMAN SCHISM AND THE ENGLISH 
CHURCH. 

[Recent debates in both Houses of Parliament must have impressed 
upon all sound and spiritual Churchmen, the necessity of imbuing the 
popular mind with a right view of what constitutes the real catholicity 
of the English and Irish Church, in contrast with that fictitious uni-* 
versalism which Romish arrogance perpetually assumes. The follow- 
ing remarks may, therefore, be useful in this respect. They are 
selected from a letter addressed by the present writer to one of the 
editors of an ultra-montane newspaper, called the " Univers,'' pub- 
lished in Paris. The work specifically alluded to is a French publica- 
tion, entitled " Le Mouvement Religieux," &c. &c., and is precisely 
such a production as a believing student of the " Tablet," or an 
impassioned worshipper of Mr. O'Connell, might be expected to 
compose :] — 

" The very title of his work is gratuitous, and takes for granted what 
thousands of English Churchmen laugh to scorn, and repudiate with 
ineffable disgust. M. Gondon puts in his title page not simply " Le 
Mouvement Religieux but also "Ze Retour de tEglise Angli- 
cane^ d V Unite.''' This ridiculous verbiage maybe very soothing in 
the ears of ultra-montane Papists, whose intellects have been blinded 
by Satan into the monstrous belief, that submission to a mere Italian 
priest, and adherence to Catholic unity, are inseparable things ! But 
I beg to assure the presiding genius of UUnivers, we deny, as real 
Catholics, the presumption on which M. Gondon's dogmatic produc- 

E 



66 



APPENDIX. 



tion starts. Like most of his fraternity, this gentleman finds it mar- 
vellously convenient to assume as an unquestioned and unquestionable 
verity, that the Komish Church and the Catholic Church are conver- 
tible things ; and moreover, that the Pope is the earthly head of this 
Church, and the centre of visible unity : so that, forsooth, those Churches 
who do not submit to his decrees, and sustain his supremacy, are not 
Catholic^ but sectarian novelties! This, we repeat, is the ultra-mon- 
tanism of L'Univers^ in its essential principle; and need we add, that 
we reject this fundamental sophism with the utmost disdain: it is 
indeed taking for granted the very thing which Anglo -Catholics 
deny. If M. Gondon can suggest any mode of carrying on this con- 
troversy, with the blessing of God, I undertake to disprove this gigantic 
assumption concerning the Pope as the centre of unity, from reason, 
HISTORY, TRADITION, and THE WoRD OF GoD. Mcauwhile, let us 
just whisper into his e^r the mighty words of no less a Pope than the 
great St. Gregory himself, who, when John, patriarch of Constanti- 
nople, dared to assume the title of " Universal Bishop," protested 
against this anti- Christian arrogance thus : — " Far be this blasphe- 
mous title from the heart of Christians." We earnestly com- 
mend this glorious orthodoxy of a Pope to les Redacteurs de V Uni- 
verse when they fulminate their ultra-montane bulls in favour of 
Popish supremacy at Rome." 

" The word Catholic is next alluded to by M. Gondon ; and he is 
quite right in asserting that no controversy could be carried on in a 
logical way between us, until we understand each other's precise 
meaning in the use of that pregnant term. In a transient communi- 
cation like this, I cannot of course be expected to enter into a dog- 
matic treatise on the word Catholic. But a few passing remarks you 
must allow me to offer. Universalism, then, in its physical and 
absolute sense, cannot be predicated of any Church on the face of 
the earth ; this is a self-evident proposition, which, like a first princi- 
ple, is seen in its own light. Accordingly, M. Gondon must agree 
with me in using the word Catholic in a moral and ecclesiastical sense. 
What then do we mean by " Catholic Church ? " My answer is two- 
fold : — first, we thereby intend to distinguish the Christian Church 
from the Jewish ; which plainly was not Catholic, but peculiar : there 
the public worship of God was confined to one country, the sacri- 
fices were limited to one temple, and the Church was contracted into 
ONE nation : not so with the Church of Christ, which, in distinction, 



APPENDIX. 



67 



is universal or catholic. Still the question positively to be considered, 
viz. : — what do we mean when we say " I believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church?" Now, is M. Gondon aware, that the more ancient 
creeds have not the "Catholic," but simply "Holy?" The word 
Catholic was added by the Greeks, and after Vv^ards received into the 
Latin Symbol. Let us then simply state what we understand by 
" Catholic Church" the entire body of believing Christians, who con- 
tinue in " the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship," holding fast and firm 
the " faith once delivered unto the saints." Will M. Gondon accept 
this interpretation of Catholic ? As he has presumed to write a thick 
volume upon our English Church, has he ever read the immortal pages 
of Bishop Pearson on the Creed ? — a man of whose genius the illustrious 
scholar and critic, Bentley, said, "Its very dust was gold." I am 
bold enough to suspect, that M. Gondon knows nothing of our theolo- 
gical literature, in its highest forms, whatever ; and he must, there- 
fore, pardon me for offering two brief extracts on the meaning of 
Catholic — the one is from the writings of Pearson, and the other from 
the celebrated Bishop Bull, the great antagonist of Boussuet. Pear- 
son says (Works, Oxford edition, 8vo. vol. . p. 410)— "Wherefore, 
I conclude that this Catholicism, or second affection of the Church, 
consisteth generally in universality, or embracing all sorts of persons, 
as to be disseminated through all nations, as comprehending all ages, 
as containing all necessary and saving truths, as obliging all conditions 
of men to all kinds of obedience, as curing all diseases and planting all 
graces in the souls of men. The necessity of believing the Holy 
Catholic Church, appeareth first in this, that Christ hath appointed it 
as the only way unto eternal life. . . . Christ never appointed 
two ways to heaven; nor did he build a Church to save some, and 
make another institution for other men's salvation. There is no other 
name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved, 
but the name of Jesus ; and that name is no otherwise given under 
heaven than in the Church. As none were saved from the deluge but 
such as were within the ark of ISToah, framed for their reception by the 
command of God ; as none of the first-born of Egypt lived, but such 
as were within those habitations which were sprinkled with blood by 
the appointment of God, for their preservation ; so none shall ever be 
of God, which belong not to the Church of God." And now let us hear 
that fine champion of English Catholicism, Bishop Bull, whose prodi- 
gious learning caused Boussuet himself to compliment an Anglican 



68 



APPENDIX. 



prelate. " By the Cathouec Church, I mean the Church universal, 
being a collection of all the Churches throughout the world, who 
retain the faith (a-aS,) delivered to the saints (Jude 3) ; that is, who 
hold and profess, in the substance of it, that faith and religion which 
was delivered by the apostles of Christ to the first original Churches, 
according to Tertullian's rule before mentioned." — (Bull's Works. Ox- 
ford edition, vol. ii. p. 242.) "Xone of us do affirm that our ChuiTh 
is the only true Church : for that would be a schismatic assertion, like 
that of the Donatists of old, and the Papists nowadays, and the 
highest breach of charity, in damning all the Christian world besides 
ourselves."— vol. ii. p. 188.) 

" We must now revert to another j)Ouit in my remarks on M. G-on- 
don's Mouvement^' to which the editor of L'Univers has alluded 
with sarcastic triumph. How far or not his sneering Romanism is 
premature, will presently appear. Your readers, sir, will perhaps 
remember, that in reply to the boastful assertions of M. G-ondon, 
against the Catholicity of the English Church, I threw down the 
follo"vving challenge : viz., that I would undertake to prove the fol- 
lowing three propositions :" 

(1.) That in England the so-called Romish Church is nothing more 
than a Sect. 

(2.) That the English Church is our trae Catholic Church. 
(3.) That the Popish "Bishops" in England and Ii'eland are 
Schismatics. 

" ]^ow on this occasion I am not called to enter on this triple argu- 
ment, but to M. Gondon's sneer I am bound to reply — " Je ne com- 
pr ends pas sa seconde proposition. Comment une Eglise serait elle 
Catholique en Angleterre, si elle cesse de Vetre en quittant cette Hie 
Really, su-, it is not my duty to supply the editor of th.Q L' Univers 
vnXh comprehension as well as ideas; but let me tell him, that when 
English Churchmen call their Church by the venerable name of 
" Catholic," they do so principally for two reasons : first, because they 
consider her to be not exclusively the Catholic Church, like the 
Romish Dissenters ; but because they know her to be a true branch, 
primitive and apostolical, of that One Church Universae which 
Christ founded ; and secondly, in order to distinguish their own Com- 
munion from the almost numberless sects and nameless societies 
which arrogate to themselves the attributes of " Churches," but which, 
according to the tenth Canon of the English Church, are to be consi- 



APPENDIX. 



69 



dered as no organized Churches at all. Where then is the absurdity 
of our denominating the Mother Church of Great Britain, Catholic ? " 

" But let us again retort the argument on this oracle of modern 
ultra-montanism. What right then, either in reason, histor}^, or fact, 
has the Romish Church to limit the exclusive appropriation of Catholic 
to herself? Her dogmas, principles, articles, and doctrines, are to a 
great extent novelties and intrusions, which, like all other forms of 
dissenterism, have been invented by the sectaiian discontent of man's 
heart ; and have therefore no pretensions whatever to Catholicity, or 
primitive truth. The Romanists vastly exaggerate the extent of the 
Papal see. Before the fifteenth century, those Roman Churches, 
which are not within the European continent, had no existence. Then, 
neither in Africa, Asia, nor America, had Rome her ecclesiastical 
colonies. And at the present period can anything be more prepos- 
terous, than for the slaves of the Pope to grasp imto themselves the 
title of exclusive Catholicity ? Do these adulators of Romish assump" 
tion imagine, that the Orientai. Chukch in European Turkey, 
Siberia, a great part of Russia, Moldavia, Greece, the Archipelago, 
Syria, Palestine, and Egypt — is an absolute nonentity ? Are the im- 
mense communions of believers in the East, which are under the 
Episcopacy of the four Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, Constanti- 
nople, and Jerusalem, to be melted into mere negations before the 
flaming arrogance of pontifical Rome ? If not, then what becomes of 
that miserable falsehood, and bombastic absurdity, that in the Roman 
community the CathoHc Church exists, to the destruction of all other 
branches of the Church Universal ? In the words then of a distin- 
guished Churchman in our day, let me add: — "Our Churches are 
Catholic, because they acknowledge the Catholic Church, respect its 
authority, receive its faith, and have never been divided from it." 

" In another part of M. Gondon's letter, the writer of this is censured 
for speaking of Mr. Ward's book as " heretical." Since that letter 
appeared, we all know the decision which an overwhelming majority 
in Oxford have come to, in reference to some passages of ecclesiastical 
treason towards the Church of England, which this " Ideal " of INIr. 
Ward has ventured to publish : — we need not therefore enter largely 
into this subject. Let others plead for ^'holding'' Romish doctrines, 
as distinct from " teaching'' them : let them reconcile their consciences 
as they can, before a heart-searching God, as to the honesty of their 
conduct towards a Chiu-ch whose principles they betray, and whose 



70 



APPENDIX. 



creed they undermine. They are left to "stand or fall to their 
own Master." Still, we do venture to say, that should this period of 
ecclesiastical excitement be recorded by some future historian, he will 
blush to register the names of men, who have taught the young minds 
and the inexperienced hearts of our Church to believe, that the 
Fathers of our Reformed Communion were fools who did not under- 
stand their own words, and heretics who betrayed the purity of that 
truth which they were bound to defend. As a specimen of " Ideal" 
orthodoxy — in which we are at a loss which to prefer, either the 
charity of the text or the soundness of the doctrine — permit me to 
quote one passage from Mr. Ward's book, upon which the University 
has put its righteous brand. We all know that in many of our 
Articles a strong element of Lutheran sentiment prevails. Every one 
who has studied the mere alphabet of the Reformation, is quite aware 
that Melancthon was more than once consulted by Cranmer in their 
preparation ; and that both before and after their revision, concerning 
our justification in a forensic sense before God, the Augsburg con- 
fession was virtually a model. ISTow the author of the following 
dreadful language, be it remembered, swore on the faith of the Holy 
Gospels, in plain, literal, obvious, and absolute terms, his adherence to 
our " Articles " — the 1 1th of which delivers this doctrine : " We are 
accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or de- 
servings." Bearing this fact in mind, we transcribe the ensuing ex- 
tract, which Mr. Ward quotes from his own articles in the British 
Critic, and honours it with his high and holy approval : — " Evangeli- 
cals cleave to the soul- destroying heresy of Luther on the subject of 
justification." — "A religious person, who shall be sufficiently clear- 
headed to understand the meaning of words " (this is really a very 
suicidal remark for the author of " the Ideal " to venture) " is war- 
ranted in rejecting Lutheranism (which, by the way, Mr. Ward does 
not comprehend) on the very same grounds which would induce 
HIM TO reject Atheism ! — which he feels on most certain grounds to 
be opposed to first principles." This is tolerably severe, and rather 
strong than otherwise. But our Jupiter Tonans of Romanistic ortho- 
doxy, comes down upon the defenceless head of poor Luther with a 
still more overwhelming burst of indignation : " When we speak of 
Lutheranism, we speak of an abstract doctrine, which cannot, we 
verily believe, be held consistently b// the Devils ; but which is held to 



APPENDIX. 



71 



an alarming extent among ' Evangelicals,' though inconsistently ! ! " 
Truly the " Evangelicals " are indebted much to the Christian mildness 
and touching pathos of this reproof. They have often been assailed 
with the contempt and sarcasm of writers before this ; but there is a 
combination of poetry and piety about the author of the "Ideal," 
which leaves all prior rebuke from " those who hold Romish doc- 
trines" far distant. Meanwhile, may an insignificant Presbyter, with 
the utmost delicacy, be allowed to intimate — that such treatment of 
the "Devils" is almost as unjust as his conduct to the "Evangelicals," 
Mr. Ward intimates that the " Devils" are even worse than "Atheists." 
But a certain writer in a book called the " Il^ew Testament," informs 
us that " Devils believe and tremble." It is therefore not even giving 
the "Devils" their due, thus to confound them with "Ideal" "Atheists." 

"In contrast, however, with this volcanic irruption of burning disgust 
against an anti-Romish Article in our Reformed Church, let us hear the 
language of "judicious Master Hooker." Even among those English 
ultra-Montanists whose desire it is that we should bewail " the great 
SIN or the sixteenth century" (! ! !) at the feet of the Romish 
Pontiff, there never was a man who felt the true and healthful mean- 
ing of the following maxim like the venerable saint whose words will 
follow it : — " Contra rationem nemo sohrius ; contra scripturam nemo 
Christianus ; contra ecclesiam nemo catholicus." But now let 
the English words of Hooker be heard : — 

" Such are we in the sight of God the Father as is the very Son 
OF God himself. Let it be counted folly, or frenzy, or fury what- 
soever, it is our comfort and wisdom ; we care for no knowledge in the 
world but this, that man hath sinned and God hath suffered ; that God 
hath made himself the son of man ; and that men are made the 
righteousness or God. * * * Search all the generations of men 
since the fall of our father Adam ; find one man that hath done one 
action which hath passed from him pure, and for that one man's only 
action neither man nor angel shall feel the torments that are prepared 
for both." — Discourse of Justification. 

Perhaps, however, some people may be ready to say, the author of 
the " Ideal" does not seriously mean to assert that such men as 
Latimer, Ridley, Hooker, and Davenant — all of whom held justifi- 
cation by faith, properly understood — were more infernal in their 
creed than "Devils." His own words shall reply to this generous 
supposition : — 



72 



APPENDIX, 



" Speaking still of the said abstract Lutheran doctrine, there is no 
one circumstance connected with my humble (?) efforts in the British 
Critic^ on which I look back with so much satisfaction as on this ; that 
I have ventured to characterise that hateful and fearful type of 

ANTICHRIST IN TERMS NOT WHOLLY INADEQUATE TO ITS PRODIGIOUS 
DEMERITS." 

" So much for " The Ideal," which if not in this passage the actual 
of Tractarian Popery run mad — is something else, which no brother 
clergyman would like to describe. And here, after this fulmination of 
fierce abuse on " the Lutheran heresy," allow one, who perchance has 
studied the life, principles, and character of Martin Luther, a little 
more than the author of " The Ideal " pretends to have done — to 
say a passing word in behalf of the valiant Reformer. Who then dis- 
putes for one moment, that there are passages in his life and portions 
of his conduct, which even Luther's German admirers acknowledge 
with sincere regret ? His natural temper was violent and headstrong ; 
oft-times his language grew revoltingly coarse ; and in controversy he 
was apt to fall into that very fault of assumed infallibility which he 
reprobated with such severe energy in others. Moreover, let it be 
freely granted that there are some theological views developed by 
Luther, which no consistent English Churchman would be willing to 
defend, and that in his honest recoil from the self-righteous tendencies 
of Romanism, he frequently rebounded to the very brink of Antino- 
mian heterodoxy. Let all this, we say, be allowed ; and still we 
venture to assert, that since the Apostolic age a finer specimen of mag- 
nanimity and faith, of fearless heart and gigantic intellect, of heroic 
resolve and heavenly enthusiasm for what was believed to be the 
cause of Christ's truth and man's salvation — this world of ours had not 
witnessed. Let it never be forgotten, that many of those elements 
which vitiated the excellencies of Luther's great heart and glorious 
mind, were partially derived from the bad system in which his moral 
being was originally nurtured. Hence, it is a savage injustice on the 
part of the Romanists, to taunt the German Reformer with faults, 
which their own ecclesiastical corruptions assisted in producing. And 
who can estimate Luther, with the faintest possibility of giving his 
character a fair consideration, who does not remember the character of 
the times, their political complexion, their moral and spiritual pecu- 
liarities, the style of Latin freedom in which polemics were then carried 
on, and above all, the gross, glaring, and grievous wrongs inflicted by Leo, 



APPENDIX. 



73 



his legates, and agents, on the appeals of the Reformer for a fair trial ? 
That writers of the " Ideal " school, whose morbid sickliness of mind, 
and religious sentimentalism of feeling sympathise with all the mysticism 
of Roman theology, cannot appreciate Luther — is almost a natural 
consequence of their peculiar temperament in regard to divine things : 
in this respect they are to be pitied more than condemned. Still, 
they might have the modest forbearance to abstain from dealing out 
their atrocious invectives and ruthless censures on a man who, at 
least, was an earnest, truth -seeking, and God-fearing spirit ; and one 
(vrith all his allowed infirmities), the dust from whose shoes many of 
his modern revilers are not worthy to wipe. Again, sir, how comes it 
to pass that these "Ideal" sycophants of the Trentine Creed do not 
remember, that if ever one human being more than another, really, 
prayerfully, and intensely endeavoured to absorb into the very life- 
blood of his spii-itual nature all ivhich Roman theology could impart — 
that soul was Martin Luther ? As a proof of this, we have only to 
remind the reader of all the process of mighty experience and myste- 
rious trial through which Luther passed, on his way to the clear 
" truth as it is in J esus and how teachably and meekly, at ail 
times, he surrendered both heart and head to the rules and restraints 
of his Church. In short, we cannot understand how any one who be- 
lieves that Luther was sincere in his convictions, can doubt this - that 
he left the Romish Church, simply because to the very centre of his 
consciousness was he convinced that the Romish Church had deserted 
God. In him there was nothing of the anarch, the fanatic, or the 
schismatical innovator. He loved truth with impassioned earnest- 
ness ; and he yearned over the endangered souls of his benighted 
countrjTnen with a compassion, which had its perfect archetype in 
Him who wept over Jerusalem's fated towers. In the Gospel, accord- 
ing to the Pope and priesthood of Rome, he had found that man's 
own WORKS tended to supplant the Saviour's merit, and man's own 
\\^LL to be a substitute for the Holy Ghost. But in the Gospel ac- 
cording unto God, and m the Priesthood of Jesus Christ, he discovered 
that we are "justified freely by His grace through the redemption 
that is IN Jesus Christ ;" and also, that there is a Divine Spirit who 
" worketh in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure." 

" I have now responded to the chief points treated upon in M. Gon- 
don's letter, so far as they relate to matters of personal opinion and con- 
duct. As to the strictly theological questions to which he refers, a? 



74 



APPENDIX. 



tained in his audacious work — you do not seem inclined to offer 
your pages for their discussion. I must therefore leave this matter 
for some other occasion. Before, however, I terminate this pro- 
tracted epistle, let me boldly tell the editor of L' Univers, that his 
conception of what the Anglican Reformation really was, is altogether 
erroneous and unsound. He considers it, in the main, as almost the 
national apotheosis of sELr-wiLL in an ecclesiastical form, and 
that its doctrine amounts to this monstrous assertion — a man may 
choose his own Creed and select his own Church, according to the 
arbitrary action of his own private judgment, without the remotest 
submission of heart and mind to the teaching of the Church, and 
the voice of universal tradition. Nothing can be more completely 
the reverse of truth than this. The foreign Reformers rejected such 
hideous licence ; and the English Reformers again and again, both in 
their treatises, sermons, ,and homilies, repudiate this rash and unholy 
flattery of individual self, under the plea of conscience and private 
judgment. Even Luther pronounces a direct anathema upon those 
sectarian anarchs who are wicked enough to despise and repudiate the 
consenting voice of universal antiquity. The Saxon Confession, for 
instance, says, " We condemn all the madnesses { furores) which are 
opposed to the creed ;" and others condemned by the true judgments of 
the Church. And when we revert to the historic annals of our own 
Reformation, we find Latimer, Ridley, and especially Cranmer and 
Jewell, perpetually doing homage, not to the wild movements of 
partial self-will, but to the voice of true antiquity and Catholic 
TRADITION. For instance, the " Necessary Doctrine^'' &c., which was 
agreed on by the Church, as such^ in 1543, has the following passage : 
— All those things which were taught by the apostles, and have 
been, by a whole universal consent of the Church of Christ ever sith 
that time.) taught continually, and taken always for true., ought to be 
received, accepted, and kept, as a perfect doctrine apostolic." 

" In future therefore let M. Gondon and his editorial compeers — who 
through the pages of L' Univers deify the Pope into a kind of terres- 
trial god, and slander the Catholic Church of England — study the 
principles of the Reformation, before they presume to condemn its 
consequences. Our Church is no more answerable for the sectarian 
abuse to which the doctrine of "private judgment" has been subject, 
than the Romish Communion is accountable for every mad perversity 
which the rashness of her individual members has ventured to exhibit. 



APPENDIX. 



75 



Whatever the flippant pages of foreign authors may venture to assert, 
I can assure M. Gondon and L'Univers^ that there are thousands of 
true-hearted Churchmen in England who are quite willing to say, 
with the accomplished author of " Origines Liturgicce" — " The 
Church of England, in fact, rejects every doctrine that the Universal 
Church has condemned, and believes everything which that Church 
has declared to be an article of faith ; and as a member of the Church 
of England, and in the strictest conformity with her principles, I re- 
ceive every decree, council, and doctrine which the Catholic Church 
receives, and anthematize every heresy which she anthematizes." 

" With these words, sir, I conclude this epistle, which has extended 
itself far beyond my intention. Be assured that my heart's prayer is 
for a holy unity of Christ's Church here on earth, both vislble and 
INVISIBLE. For that blessed consummation may we incessantly be- 
siege the throne of grace with our prayers ; and, so far as the blinded 
victims of Romish superstition are personally concerned, give me 
credit for plain sincerity and Christian truthfulness when I add, that 
'my heart's desire and prayer is — that they may be saved.' " 



London : 

Printed by Stewart and Murray, 
Old Bailey. 



m ^ — I — ^ 

THE 

IDEAL 

OF 

THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 

A SKETCH. 



BY THE 

REV. R. MONTGOMERY, M.A. 

AUTHOR OP " LtTTHER," " THE G08PEL BEFORK THE AQB," ETC. ETO. 



" There is oise body and one Spirit." — Eph, iy. 



LONDON: 
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. 
1845. 



Price 2s, Qd. 



Stewart and Murray, Old Bailey, 



WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



CHRIST OUR ALL IN ALL. 

THE GOSPEL BEFORE THE AGE. Second Edition. 
REFLECTIVE DISCOURSES. Second Edition. 

Let us give the indication of the feeling entertained to Robert Mont- 
gomery by two of England's greatest modern historians, one who 
shall be nameless, and Alison. The first says (in reference to his ' Re- 
flective Discourses') — ' I have perused nothing that I recollect which 
brings our Divine Lord before us in such truth and majesty, in so intellectual 
a manner, and with such fine fullness and flow of language, and yet select 
and approj^riate.' . ...... . . 

' I tiiink the Sermons must gratify the Christian who desires to be a 
sincere one, and to realise to himself and in himself, the ideas, feelings, 
hopes, promises, and blessings, which our gi'acious Lord sets before us. They 
are above a common or careless mind ; but every mind that at all cultivates 
itself (and many of the poorest are now doing so) will not be loijg in appre- 
ciating and understanding them. I have in you all the energy and real 
feeling which my understanding wants.' 

" The testimony of Mr. Alison to his ' Satan, or Intellect without 
God/ is equally strong; and to these might be added the French historian 
of the Reformation, Merle D'Aubigne." — New Quarterly Review, 
July, 1844. 

LUTHER; or, THE SPIRIT OF THE REFORMATION. 
Third Edition. 

SATAN ; or, INTELLECT WITHOUT GOD. Tenth Edition. 

THE OMNIPRESENCE OF THE DEITY. Twenty-first 
Edition. 

THE MESSIAH. Eighth Edition. 
WOMAN. Fifth Edition. 

OXFORD : WITH Biographical Notes. Sixth Edition. 



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